Did you see it? At 6:09am a Delta 2 Rocket carrying the WISE infrared spacecraft blasted off from Vandenberg Air Base, near Lompoc. The rocket was visible in Santa Clarita and appeared as a brilliant spot of light rising in the north west sky. It then streaked west over the Pacific. This shot was taken just before stage 1 separation. Unfortunately my SLR wasn't charged, hence the low quality picture. . The launch was a success. Photo Credit: ME!
- Two years later, no leads in murder of Bryan Miranda, the then 17 year old Hart High grad who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Newhall. County authorities are thinking of raising reward money to $25,000. SIGNAL
- Homeless shelter bursting at the seams, may have to turn away single homeless men SIGNAL
- Self-proclaimed “Loud Guy” Frank Ferry says he loved the Mayor Dude campaign and is going to campaign “aggressively” for City Council next year. He says this election will be “very personal,” likely a reference to his nemesis TimBen Boydston SIGNAL
- Parents debate Saugus elementary school closures on Saugus’ website SIGNAL
- Pasadena Star News columnist decries bland corporate design and architecture and quotes a reader who says, “Just go up to Santa Clarita where it is difficult to find a non-chain business establishment. There you will see the future these corporations have in store for the rest of us.” TRUTH HURTS
- The supervising animator for the new Disney film “The Princess & the Frog” lives in Santa Clarita. PhillyBurbs interviews him HERE
- Santa Clarita woman to be on new ABC show “Find my Family.” The show helps adopted children find their birth mothers. KHTS
- Harrison Katz, the COC student running for City Council, has “politics in his blood.” His dad worked for Ted Kennedy’s 1980 Presidential Campaign SIGNAL
- Hard economic times means local malls are offering deep discounts. Funny I haven’t seen that at our local mall where I try not to make eye contact with the hyper-aggressive cart vendors. Even so, Think SCV for all your holiday shopping. LA TIMES
- Speaking of that, the ThinkSCV blog has a poem extolling the virtues of shopping SCV THINK SCV
- .84 inches of rain dropped on Santa Clarita this weekend. It felt like more than that, especially if you were out and about on Saturday SIGNAL
- No issues this year with putting a Menorah up in Stevenson Ranch SIGNAL
- December gardening tips from SCENE IN SCV
- Now that’s a listing: CB Richard Ellis gets contract with state to sell $2.2 billion worth of California government buildings LA TIMES
- Tim Myers argues (convincingly perhaps) that the Saugus School District is angling for a parcel tax when it talks of closing up to 5 elementary schools SIGNAL
- Berta Gonzales-Harper, the activist who slammed TimBen Boydston in a recent LTE, gets slammed back by another LTE. This one, however, seems to question her right to even speak her opinion SIGNAL
- Dave Bossert happy that there was no controversy over Menorah in Stevenson Ranch this year, and says, by and large, the SCV is a “live and let live” community. I suppose that’s true in general, but the Prop 8 results last year paint a different picture. WEST RANCH BEACON
And that’s a wrap for 2009! I’m on vacation starting Wednesday and the Daily Brief will be on hiatus until the New Year. I may post a year-end wrap up between now and the New Year, so check back. If you want more local discussion while I’m away, visit the SCVTalkers Forum, where it’s free and easy to sign up. Cheers to you and happy holidays! Thank you for another good year for SCVTalk.com!
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Does Vandenberg have a schedule available to watch out for missile launches? Just curious.
Fred, yeah, a loose one. For instance, in 2010 you can expect two rocket launches.
I only knew about this one from NASA’s Twitter feed. Also http://spaceflightnow.com/ is a good site and has schedules and updates.
NickelDime, yeah this blog, just like me, tries to improve itself over time, hence the changes.
I’m glad I brought the DB back but I may take summers off from now on. The DB is entering it’s 3rd year in 2010!
Thanks for reading and contributing here!
You have done a great job with this website. I would like you to know that it is the first place I go every morning when I wake up. Looking forward to another great year of the DB.
I would also like to say this blog is a daily read of mine and I look forward to all the local news and debate every morning. Thank you Jeff.
Jeff:
Enjoy your vacation and get tanned rested and ready for the work ahead in 2010 as we go through an entertaining City Council Election.
On the SUSD school closures:
That blog is fantastic and balanced between folks that have a lot of knowledge about the situtation and some rational ideas as well as entertaining conspiracy theorists reawakening the Saugus vs. Valencia trope. (Who gets their mail first?)
One thing that struck me is that many Bouquet Canyon people would be OK if that campus were closed down permanently as long as they could take their kids to the shiny new West Creek elementary, even though it is miles away. Nice to see that suburban parents still equate a shiny facility with a good education.
Thank you Jeff for the site. It is part of my Daily read as well. You have become an important part of our local political fabric, and an asset to the community. You are not influenced by the fear of losing advertising revenue and never afraid to speak your mind. Please keep up the good work in the New Year.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas
Nickeldime:
Do you think the SUSD will close Bouquet Canyon permanently (and I mean remove all the portables and plow salt into the earth a la Carthage)?
Jeff,
I make the DB my daily news source as well but you don’t have a comic strip (no offense to cash).
ND:
Even if the BCE parents are offered the shiny new facility at WC?
You are right that this is one of the few things that one can count on to movtivate folks to get out to a public meeting. Those SUSD board members and administrators are going to get yelled at!
ND:
I’m just going by what I saw on the comment website. A not insignificant group of people saying that would be just fine with them.
I wear my headphones when I got to the mall so those kiosk people don’t jump me.
Jeff,
Thank you for providing SCV Talk, a place to keep up on some very important local issues and the many different point of views.
And Ditto~
Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas
Jeff:
I join the others in thanking you for SCVTalk. Your site beats the hell out of the Signal as a source about whats going on. I even enjoy the debate from time to time. Have a great vactation, Christmas, and New Year!
TM:
You say in your Signal piece a parcel tax vote for the school district would come out 80% yes? Isn’t that a bit optimistic in an area already carrying the school burden through Mello-Roos. I believe that there are more than 20% that have an anti-tax view as there is a backlash growing in general to government overspending and taxation.
Thanks for a great Blog Jeff.
Happy Holidays to you, your family and all your readers.
Jeff,
Happy Holidays and enjoy your vacation….maybe you should let Petz run the DB for a week…
My phone received a phone call about two months ago a poll re: the sulphur springs school dist., which then led to questions about bonds, parcel taxes. I think because of the cuts in the education budget, you are going to see schools (based on poll results) move forward with some sort of bond or parcel tax, so they can make up for the shortfall. I believe LAUSD is moving forward with a proposed 50 per parcel plan as well…
Having worked in Pasadena the last three months, I can relate to the Pasadena Star commentary. Pasadena is truly a city with a unique charachter. Part of the charachter is the many craftsman style houses built there in the 1920s. I too lament that local charachter is dying throughout the U.S. by the cookie cutter spread of generic businesses. While it is easy to understand that expanding a good business model is indeed ‘good business’, there was something good about travel in the past where you would see local variety. Santa Clarita indeed is in line with ‘any-city-USA’ in its generic businesses.
Jim Farley:
Read again. I was talking about Northbridge, Northbridge Pointe and Northpark that have come out plus 90% in favor of school bonds. Those three tracts would generate so many yes votes it would overwhelm any negative elsewhere.
I some of you may be misreading the suggestion that some BCE parents would be open to the idea that their children be moved to West Creek. It is not that they prefer this move, but rather that they KNOW that they are the campus that will for sure be closed and they want to be moved as a UNIT. If that means being offered first ‘dibs’ at the (proposed) new West Creek magnet, then that’s what they would like. If they are farmed out to other neighborhood schools, they will not move as a unit. Perhaps if they are offered a pre-lottery spot at the new campus their children and families will at least have the continuity of remaining together, depsite their new environment, teachers and fellow students.
At any rate, as a SUSD parent myself, I’m torn as to what the best solution to the budget crisis is. I understand the logic behind the school closures and if rezoning and school closures helps keep our class sizes small and keep what little programs our children enjoy, then I am for it. I’d like to know, though, what their plans are with the vacant school sites. Will they be selling or leasing off these spaces to generate revenue for our SUSD students? I think families would be a lot less apprehensive about the closures if we were given more information along these lines.
In addition to all of the above, the district HAS TO start taking its competition seriously. They are losing students to the new private and charter schools. The Signal articles have sited SUSD as acknowledging this ‘threat’ to their enrollment numbers. Obviously the district isn’t meeting the educational expectations of a growing number of families and it’s time to consider what is taking these families elsewhere (often at great expense or inconvience for the families)and if there is anything that the district could/should do to retain these students.
Walker:
I have examined the California Department of Education Website and I can’t find a charter school in the SUSD. Is there one that you know of that I am unable to find in the data? (The listing is not particularly search friendly.)
The charter school that has claimed dozens of children from my own SUSD school is SCVi (Santa Clarita Valley International). Most of the children (some 300 or so, I believe) are SUSD zoned students. The schools charter is associated with the Hart District, and the school itself is located in the Valencia (Castaic) industrial center. I’ve heard rumor that there are other much smaller charters in the area, as well as rumor of another charter school in the works (maybe what people are referring to on the SUSD site when they say SUSD is worried about a charter coming in to West Creek?). Don’t know any details of these, though, just the rumors I hear in my adventures as a suburban housewife
.
Walker:
That was excellent information. I was able to locate their state reports and can use this in a piece.
There has been a group in Castaic that has been trying to get an elementary school charter going since the late 1990′s, and this could be v. 3.0 of that effort.
I did find a more user friendly information site, and that is the ONLY current charter elementary school.
It (SCVi) has only been in Castaic as of 2009. It was in Valencia near the Ice Station (as a much smaller school) last year. If I understand correctly, the founder is a Stevenson Ranch parent.
In my experience, most of the attending families are North Valencia/Saugus parents (I’d certainly be interested in the stats, though, if they do have them!). It’s my understanding that the school tried to obtain a more central location, but the industrial center opportunity made the most sense in the short term. I know parents as far away as Canyon Country (though, SUSD zoned) that make the daily trek out to SCVi.
Walker:
If you look at their website the Raskins are the founders and I think they were involved in the late 1990′s effort.
I would be interested in hearing the “profiles” of the families that participate in the school. I would like to do that offline if we could. Please email me at tmyers@landscapedevelopment.com.
Jeff I join the chorus of those who thank you for providing a forum for disseminating information, lively discussion and debate on the issues of the day. I know it takes considerable effort and your willingness to continue scvtalk.com as a service to the community is much appreciated.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, or whatever you personally celebrate, and New Year’s holiday. I look forward to the return of the Daily Brief in 2010.
They’ve already cut back the assistant principal position from many of the smaller school sites. I can’t imagine any of the sites are small enough (if left intact) to remove the on-staff pricipal position all together.
ND, I think what some of the BCE parents are suggesting on the SUSD site, that the displaced students be offered pre-lottery spots at the (proposed) magnet, is a perfectly reasonable compromise. Students opting not to attend the magnet could attend the new locally zoned schools, but for those students currently enrolled at BCE who wish to continue with their peers/community, offering them a guaranteed spot at West Creek seems reasonable. In my opinion, the same guaranteed spot should also be offered to those children currently zoned for West Creek. This arrangment would find a ‘home’ for the displaced students, offer them some sort of compensation for the inconvience of their school and community being disrupted, allow the BCE students to remain intact (if desired), and still leave hundreds of open spots for the lottery enrollment.
TM, You’ve got mail
ND:
Unfortunately, the way these things are projected a consulting firm will take the last census data (now nearly ten years old) and apply complex mathematical algorithms to roll the data forward. This pretty much assures a poor result. In the late 1990′s the Hart projections were off enough that the district hired 40 teachers they did not really need at a loaded cost of about $1.5 million.
In 1999 my Nebraska bride enlisted about 50 volunteers to do a HARD census of the children in the attendance area on behalf of the administration. They literally went door to door and asked the number and birthday of every preschool child. This is the only instance that of heard of such accurate information being gathered.
I’ve not read the SUSD site in a few days, they might have gone off on a tangent since I last checked in
My suggestion is such that I think it would be fair to offer a spot at the (proposed) magnet to all displaced students. If Tesoro and Bridgeport students are displaced, then I would suggest that they too be offered a pre-lottery spot at West Creek. I mentioned BCE and West Creek since they are the schools we are fairly certain will be impacted by any re-zoning or school closures.
As far principal sharing, I absolutely agree that principal sharing would be be an effective strategy if the school population allows for such. It’s been my eperience that principal sharing is usually reserved for very small student bodies and I’m just not sure how practical it would be for a larger school.
My keyboard is super wonky
The mouse pad is bad. The laptop just got back from the computer Dr and now the mouse pad is super sensitive and I don’t know how to fix it…..so please ignore the missing words and letters and such. The computer ate them.
Not a penny more for schools (bonds or otherwise) until Castaic High School is built. The trust is GONE.
The first link seems to be down right now