Crazy, momentous days in Santa Clarita this week.
Let’s run down the list
Before the week began, George Runner said WTF at the Minuteman rally as a crazy old preacher got up on the stand with his hate-filled message. That didn’t stop Dave Gauny and Bob Kellar fromspeaking in front of the out-of-town group, though.
A day later, Roger Gitlin was apologizing to George Runner and saying the protests were essentially pointless. Wish he would have saved us all the trouble in the first place.
On Sunday and Monday, there was palpable, fist-pounding outrage in the old SCVTalk mailbox and on the SCVTalkers forum regarding the Signal’s editorial that alleged a Council candidate would soon release a manipulative mailer touting a Signal “Crime is on the Rise” headline.
“What the heck is up with the Signal painting ALL of the challengers with a broad brush with their editorial, and giving the incumbents a pass?,” one commenter said on SCVTalk.
And that was before I Heart turned up the heat on the Signal’s stats in his characteristic witty prose.
Turns out that the hard-hitting and manipulative mailer doesn’t exist…yet. So why did the Signal write about it?
The Signal isn’t the only one that got savaged this week though. The California Attorney General’s Office pretty much told us that One Valley One Vision, as currently comprised, isn’t worth the paper it’s written on saying that the document totally ignores greenhouse emissions from all these new cars taking people to their new homes in Level “E” Traffic.
It also said that the document didn’t even work as an informational document.
That totally harshed my buzz for OVOV, even if it did come from Jerry Brown’s office.
Another SCVer’s whose pre-election buzz has been prematurely harshed is Frank Ferry. Sometime early in the week, Dave Bossert posted an email from Frank Ferry in which Ferry appears desperate to raise $45,000 in 30 days because, he says, the race is suddenly “competitive.” Gauny/Boydston partisans are excited by the news, especially in light of the fact that the conservative California Republican Assembly IHOPPed its way into Gauny’s corner alone and didn’t endorse any of the incumbents.
Myers speculated that incumbents were concerned; after all, they’ve been caught opening Facebook fan pages in lieu of polling in order to improve their self-esteem, high school-style, he said.
But within 24 hours the City Council insurgents get smacked down by the City’s release of a new Public Opinion Poll, which finds ”high levels of resident satisfaction on big picture issues handled by the City,” the City’s email to residents said. Boy, I wonder how the Signal will report it?
“A Slice Short of Heaven,” is the Signal’s headline the next day. You can just visualize the mailer now, can’t you?
Geez, the Boydston/Gauny partisans said, the establishment is really pushing for the incumbents to get re-elected. What’s next?
Well the week was only half over at that point.
Yesterday the 60s radical in me rejoiced as 10s of thousands of students took to the streets to protest education cuts across the country. The message of the Tea Party is that no one wants to pay taxes for anything; well now we can see the results as schools in the SCV close, teachers get laid off and students pay more in our colleges and universities.
Back to the City, which yesterday decided to exit the freeway into Right Wing Crankland when it added a number of controversial and downright screwy Glenn Beck-type bills to the City Council agenda. That’s right, on Tuesday we’ll get to see what Marsha McLean thinks about de-funding ACORN, what Laurie Ender has to say about English as the National Language, and what Frank Ferry’s reaction will be to stripping American citizenship from babies born in the US to illegal immigrant parents.
No study session as promised by the City, they’ve just decided to endorse the craziest bills out there in an effort to get the Minuteman off their backs and to give their incumbents something to show to the voters.
Sigh. All this from Bob Kellar’s Proud Racist moment…I wish I had never seen that video back in January.
Surely that’s enough to chew on for one week, but no! There was an interesting Council Candidate luncheon at the Chamber yesterday in which one candidate said the illegal immigrants were working for the SCV business establishment.
And then today…Myers tells us another Republican group in town could only find enough votes to endorse Laurene Weste. Meanwhile, we learn that Castaic doesn’t really want a high school after all (well at least that part of Castaic) and…holy cow…what’s this?
Johnny Pride the 26 year old boffo council candidate has been arrested on rape charges.
Yowza!
All kidding aside, the most momentous and impactful event of this week didn’t occur in the Santa Clarita Valley at all. It occurred on a dusty road in Kandahar, Afghanistan as one of the SCV’s and America’s finest gave his life while in service of our country. Specialist Ian Gelig, 25, a 2002 graduate of Hart High and an elite paratrooper in the storied 82nd Airborne Division, died Monday when an insurgent rammed his vehicle with a car bomb.
You are not forgotten Spc. Gelig and we pray for God’s comfort on your family and friends. Thank you for your service.
Kind of puts our problems in perspective huh?
“….You are not forgotten Spc. Gelig and we pray for God’s comfort on your family and friends. Thank you for your service.
Kind of puts our problems in perspective huh?”
Amen.
Yeah, are problems are nothing compared to losing a loved one in ths war.
I wasn’t aware of the issue with J. Pride. Yowza indeed.
BTW, while I’m not a member, I think it is a misrepresentation to say that Tea Party people don’t want to pay taxes for anything.
Yes, the death of this young man in service to our country certainly gives us perspective. Thanks, Jeff.
Kellar’s proud racist moment, ha, ha, ha, that’s rich, Jeff and sure to get his defenders fired up for another round.
Thanks, Jeff for hosting SCVTALK, I can’t believe the other guy cypersquatted all the similarly named sites, Lame!
OVOV is and has been a wolf in sheeps clothing. The City is trying to be as “business friendly” as possible. Essentially, OVOV required only code minimums, OPTIONAL items to be more community and environmentally friendly, and totally ignored the traffic generated by the significant increase in population in our City. All one has to do is look at the City sponsored survey, count the number of folks who have to commute out of the SCV for work, add in those who are retired and go to school here and I’ll bet your well over 85%. With that, OVOV says the Newhall Pass doesen’t matter because they can’t control it and that all things will be fine in the City because they will add new roads like crazy, widen existing ones (often at the expense of bike lanes) and encourage folks to bike (even though they won’t require showers and locker rooms at significant employers). No great plan for significant job growth (at least the City acknowledges this is a huge problem). Continued approach to prefer residential development to business\commercial. Looking at the zoning map shows a terrible checkerboard of varying zoning. It seems as if zoning is dependent on what the developing property owners want – rather than the City having the foresight to zone based on adjacent uses and needs.
Oh and by the way, there is plenty of water for all, and drought tolerant plants aren’t required for new developments – only optional. And, there isn’t really any new growth in the Valley (because the City is taking the growth from the County) and that we can trust that the County will not modify the density in the areas where it was lowered under OVOV. The City was never going to get past the greenhouse gas analysis given their good ol boy approach. A train and bike approach in this City is just a joke as spread out as it is.
I’ve told Paul Brotzman he was blowing smoke up everyones rears. Obviously, the Attorney General’s office felt the same way.
What will it take for the City to get it?
Hey “Need”….stop shilling for TBB, DG or whichever candidate button you happen to be wearing on your Harley Davidson PJs last night before bed.
I know things like facts and the actual truth (as opposed to your version) are inconvenient details to offer to help inform our citizenry. So I’d like to help you out by clarifying the AG’s comments were specific to the County’s OVOV environmental report and that the City has yet to submit its ER to the State AG.
As for Paul Brotzman, I suspect the only thing you’ve ever done is kiss his backside saving your stronger comments for the safety of this blog.
SCV Voter:
I was at City Hall in December and asked why the OVOV EIR was so late coming out (it was supposed to be out last summer\fall). They said they were having discussions with the State AG. Guess what – The City and the County are joined at the hip on how they approach zoning and density under OVOV. The City is likely even more relaxed on standards than the County based on the City documents I’ve read.
Have you actually read any of the OVOV documents? Do your own homework and come up with your own actual truth rather than just blasting someones analysis and opinions with nothing to offer.
Need:
I have read the document, done homework and have visited City Hall….apparently a little more recently then you. The City has not submitted its OVOV EIR to the state.
While the City and County have been working on OVOV for almost 10 years (I attended one of their first public meetings at the Hart High Gym with more than 100 other residents back in 2001) the City’s EIR is an entirely separate legal document from what has been prepared by the County.
I’m quite certain you’re a smart person and know what I’m describing above is factually correct, however an inconvenient truth it might be.
Because the County submitted their document first, Mr. Brotzman and his staff now have the ability to understand the AG’s issues, speak directly with people at the AG’s office and address these priorities based on objective feedback.
And being someone who has lived in the City for more than 20 years, I’ve seen countless developers work hard to keep their properties and projects in the unincorporated area of the SCV and excluded from the city’s many tries to get a larger sphere of influence. I’m sure those developers wanted to keep their projects in the County because of their “genuine” concerns about the “horribly relaxed” city development standards.
Maybe the City will get it right, or perhaps their EIR document will be the abomination you already have deemed it to be.
Regardless, as the lack of interest most readers to this blog have shown for this issue (hundred of comments about immigration, 30 plus about JP in the last day as compared to 7 for the OVOV item posted by Jeff), most people outside of your “circle of hater-aide drinkers” either don’t understand, don’t care or are likely smart enough to know when someone is trying to play them with the doom & gloom of how we’re going to become another SFV.
SCV Voter: You raise a good point. I will say it is hard to write about OVOV and all the issues surrounding it. Planning is technical and translating that into a good blog post is difficult. I’ve tried in the past (especially about transportation issues).
I will cover it in the future and I will be interested to see how the City handles the AG’s claims about GHG emissions.
Voter:
Your right – The County and City each has to do their own EIR. Also, most blog readers are not too interested in OVOV, but I think they would be if they knew more about how it will change the character of the community from suburban to much more urban with more diverse income levels.
As someone who has lived in the City for 22 years, I’ve seen some developers always want to work with the County (Newhall Land, Poe, etc) and others that are willing to work with the City (Lennar). I’ve also seen poor developments in areas controlled by both entities. The rezoning of the land by Golden Valley High School from commercial to residential with 10′ setbacks is in my opinion a poor decision by the City (they will argue they had no control because a school was doing the rezoning). Likewise, some of the dense developments in Valencia that don’t have sufficient on-street parking are just bad news. The City and County can use development standards to determine what type of product can be built in our community. If you are ok with high density, affordable (i.e. low income) housing that is your perogitive. I’m ok with some but it needs to be in the right place – not wherever a developer wants to put it ignoring the character of surrounding neighborhoods. That is one of the problems with the City’s plan. They are looking at high density adjacent to some of the most rural areas in the valley, with little to no connection to existing jobs or shopping.
I brought up the greenhouse gas analysis at the City’s EIR scoping meeting. The City tried to play it off by saying there is no dependable model so we don’t think we need to do anything with it. Well, it seems to be important to the State as other jurisdictions have had this crop up as a showstopper. Hopefully, Brotzman and staff will tune up OVOV based on the County comments as they are consistent with many of the comments I’ve provided to City staff that essentially fell on deaf ears.
And OVOV neglects to run the legally-mandated Development Monitoring System (DMS) on these plans, doesn’t it? Wow, talk about handing no-growthers a means to halt all development! The DMS is how the County finagled out of a County-wide plan amendment ban… they risk reinstatement of the ban without this court-ordered analysis. Stay tuned…