- Whole lot of action at last night’s City Council meeting: massage parlors got regulated, the Council decided to hold study sessions in the main council chambers, future city employees saw their pension benefits decrease and the trouble with LED lighting. Oh I almost forgot: Frank Ferry called out Bill Reynolds I HEART SCV, SIGNAL, KHTS
- The earmark ban in Congress may threaten perchlorate clean up at Whittaker-Bermite according to some lobbyists the Signal talked to. And here I thought earmarks were just wasteful federal spending? And wasn’t Whittaker paying the cost of this cleanup? SIGNAL
- California’s Enterprise Zone programs like the one here in the SCV cost the state of California $3.6 billion but have had no impact on job creation according to one group that support’s the Governor’s plan to eliminate EZ programs. But another group says the EZ program has “created or retained 118,000″ jobs statewide OC REGISTER
- Meanwhile the SCV Economic Development Corporation is urging its members to write letters in support of EZ saying the program is critical for “for creating jobs, supporting capital investment, decreasing poverty and helping our valley stay competitive.” WRB
- 2,000 people have signed up/paid for tickets to the SCV Food (truck) festival, which will be held in Central Park on February 19. The company organizing the event, DrinkEatPlay, also did the Tribute Fest last year. DrinkEatPlay told the trucks to bring enough food to feed 10,000 people and the whole event is aimed at pleasing Santa Claritan palates without making us too bitchy, which we are quite good at going by that other food truck festival in Bridgeport KHTS
- The 6.6 Sylmar earthquake struck at around 6am 40 years ago today. Great look back with Tony Newhall in today’s SIGNAL ““There was a gas break down by Newhall Avenue and Lyons Avenue, where the Jack In The Box is now,” Newhall said. “It wasn’t a Jack In The Box then; it was a country store. “The police set up a barricade to block it off. There was a big flame in the air for a while. They couldn’t put it out, so they set up police cars around it.”
- Construction of the foundation of the Old Town Newhall library is underway. CITY BRIEFS has pics
- Supervisor Antonovich has taken the lead in criticizing a new flyer put out by the LA County Department of Health that advises young people how to enjoy the drug Excstasy safely. The Department of Health says it will revise the flyer LA TIMES
- The part owner of the fancy Mercedes Benz dealership on Valencia Blvd is suing his partner for breach of trust, according to The Signal. SIGNAL
- Jealous much? A 46 year old man is under arrest after threatening his girlfriend with a knife after she saw her ex-boyfriend at a gas station. SIGNAL
- Michael Dean Stephens began his long stay in state prison this week. He’ll be serving 17 years to life for the murder of Josh Pipho at North Kern State Prison SIGNAL
- This blog post is why I like Jerry Brown SAC BEE
- Excellent column from Gary Horton this week on how many service-industry workers in the SCV lack health insurance SIGNAL
- iPad 2 reportedly in production with forward facing camera, faster processor but same size and screen resolution LA TIMES
- Another meeting of the Public Library advisory committee will be held tomorrow night at City Hall SAVE OUR LIBRARIES
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I am relieved to hear that the City is taking a close look at public pensions, but I am curious as to what they really changed.
Saddle up! It looks like the election season should be fun.
Great brief today!
A lot, acutally. They went from providing 2.7% @ 55 to 2% @ 60. Lowering the amount of pension they provide, and delaying disbursement. Thats a big big reduction in cost. Further, they changed the provision where one’s pension is based on the highest paid 36 months instead of 12 months, eliminating the “bank up my overtime and retire” strategy which raises costs.
A good move for the city to save benefit costs in both the short and long term… bad for their recruitment, as qualified candidates (myself included) will likely look elsewhere or stay put . I’m in PERS at 2.5% @ 55. I could and would gladly bump the age to 60, hell I even think 62 is more appropriate) but 2% when the going rate is about 2.5, well its just not competitive. (Santa Clarita should have come down to 2.5 from 2.7… more reasonable IMHO).
Flame Suit On!
“Mr. Reynolds doesn’t need the truth to do his videos.”
Indeed he does not. Just a numb intellect, a touch of paranoia nervosa, a smidgen of bitter old manishness, a sprinkle of loneliness, a dollop of entitlement, a dash of FoxNews, a heaping tablespoon of envy, an empty social calendar, and a WHOPPING helping of “white pride”.
Go get ‘em Bill!
So much for your “unanimity” Bill!
Bill got owned.
Y’know, Ferry all but thanked NAFF for his videos, saying that fears of appearing in another YouTube video kept him well behaved. A little joke, sure, but he actually goes to the trouble of showing people who their council members are and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Agreed. You can’t fake the filmed tantrums. That’s all Frank
Theyaren’t perfect but Bill frames them in the light he wants just like you do with things you don’t like, take for instance our Sheriff’s Department.
Yep, the Sheriff’s Department I dislike despite a close relative who serves there and my praising Santa Clarita’s low crime rate. You found me out.
CC, you call them tantrums, I call them expressive, free-form poetry.
No one can find you out because you hide like NAFF and snipe everyone you dislike. #weak
Cops juke the stats, it’s what they do. Once you get to Season 3, you’ll understand.
Aside from his bigotry, I’m offended most by his production values.
Is Frank Ferry the only one in the SCV who doesn’t know who NotaFerryFan is? Is Marsha McLean the only one is the SCV who thinks that coucil members shoul not be held responsible for breaking the law?
Maybe IHeart IS correct… NAFF owns Frank Ferry.
Maybe NAFF should look into owning not just Frank Ferry, but a Macintosh.
Gasoline on the earmarks fire:
Back in 2001 or so, the beloved local water agencies, led by Castaic Lake Water Agency, sued Whittaker Corp. in U.S. District Court for contaminating SCV’s water supply with perchlorate and volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). Those of us who were active in pushing for clean-up of the drinking water, and the wet, contaminated soil at Bermite which was constantly dripping into the water supply, supported the filing of the lawsuit.
However, during the course of that lawsuit, CLWA’s lawyers, the Nossaman Firm, succeeded in pushing out all of the other water agencies’ lawyers, who might have provided some independent thoughts on how to run the case. Not coincidentally, the Nossaman Firm represented, and still represents Newhall Land. The Nossaman Firm also regularly represents one of California’s biggest perchlorate polluters, Aerojet, so as my old mentor taught me, the Nossaman Firm had to be careful not to make court precedent in the CLWA case which would hurt its other clients.
One of the “useful” maneuvers in that lawsuit was the Nossaman Firm signing an unnecessary confidentiality agreement with Whittaker, which said that the elected members of the local water agencies (aka Plambeck and Dunn) could not attend expert witness depositions, could not read expert witness transcripts, could not read expert witness reports, and could not see documents produced in discovery, unless those elected officials agreed to be bound by a gag order which would be accompanied by severe sanctions from the Federal judge if they broke it. The prohibition on your elected officials seeing the evidence in the case was so broad, they could not even see the water agencies’ own expert witness reports and depositions and the water agencies’ own documents. That prohibition on elected officials “seeing the evidence and talking about it in public” was obtained/agreed to by the Nossaman Firm without the elected officials’ prior knowledge or consent. As a result, the CLWA/Newhall Land law firm’s lawyers were totally in the driver’s seat on the water contamination litigation, with the vast majority of the local elected officials being nothing but yes men, all the while authorizing payment of huge attorneys fees to the CLWA/Newhall Land lawyers.
Roughly 90% of the perchlorate and VOCs at Bermite were spilled, dumped and buried in the soil there, by Whittaker Corp., while it was engaging in work for the Department of Defense (DOD). Way back in 2003 or so, there was a published Federal court decision in another case which said that when toxic contaminants in the soil got there through DOD contractors’ activities, it is DOD, not the defense contractor, who should be sued for the cost of clean-up (“remediation”). Santa Clarita’s local water agencies and CLWA/Newhall Land’s law firm had not sued the DOD in the Bermite case, and the defendants including Whittaker and the current owner of the Bermite property had not cross claimed against DOD to seek payment for the clean-up of Santa Clarita’s local drinking water to take out the perchlorate and the VOCs.
Before the lawsuit started, two drinking water wells owned by Newhall County Water District and two drinking water wells owned by Santa Clarita Water (a CLWA subsidiary) were shut down because they contained significant quantities of perchlorate and VOCs which were not removed by existing water treatment equipment. [To learn about the two most pervasive VOCs at Bermite, search TCE and PCE.]
After the Whittaker lawsuit started Santa Clarita Water’s huge volume “Stadium Well” in the Swap Meet’s west parking lot also had to be shut down as an underground plume of perchlorate and VOCs finally reached the well. During the course of the lawsuit, Valencia Water Company quietly shut down at least two of its drinking water wells.
Santa Clarita’s local water agencies’ lawyers, the Nossaman Firm, spent more than $100,000 of the public’s money in preparing to try the case against Whittaker and the Bermite property owner. For those who understand the litigation process, trial preparation is very expensive, and once it is “shut down”, trial preparation at a much later date is just as expensive to rev-up again years later.
For reasons which are not public, instead of going trial, SCV’s local water agencies’ elected officials, guided by their lawyers who represent CLWA and Newhall Land, decided to enter into a settlement with Whittaker, its insurers, the current Bermite property owner and its insurers.
The settlement agreement IS public, and is pretty standard in terms of its text. The local water agencies received $50 Million in cash to pay to install equipment which was supposed to remove the perchlorate from the contaminated water flowing out of the Bermite property. The local water agencies signed a full, general release of Whittaker, the current Bermite property owner and their insurance companies for all further claims of damages arising out of perchlorate contamination of the local water wells. The $50 Million was paid by Steadfast Insurance, a subsidiary of the huge international insurer, Zurich Insurance.
Ostensibly, under that settlement agreement and release, Santa Clarita’s local water agencies could later rev-up a new lawsuit to seek compensation for damage to the groundwater supply from contamination by any chemical OTHER THAN perchlorate. However, their hope was that DTSC would use its administrative powers to force Whittaker to pay for remediation of the VOCs from the drinking water well supplies.
Under a separate settlement agreement among the insurance companies, the current Bermite property owner and Whittaker, Steadfast Insurance paid another $50 Million into an escrow held by AISLIC, a subsidiary of the Federally-bailed out AIG Insurance. AISLIC (now calling itself Chartis) is supposed to carefully dole out the $50 Million to Whittaker to pay for clean-up of the contaminated soil at Bermite. According to that settlement agreement when Whittaker uses up the $50 Million to clean-up Bermite’s soil, AISLIC is supposed to “process claims” for further reimbursement of more clean-up expenses by Whittaker, using AISLIC’s money.
I am told that following that settlement, Steadfast Insurance approached the Department of Defense and obtained $30 Million in partial reimbursement of what it had to pay the water agencies. That payment was made by the DOD under the principle established by that Federal case law precedent several years earlier, referred to above. I am also told that AISLIC (Chartis) has sued the DOD seeking payment for the sums it will have to start paying under its own insurance policy after the escrowed $50 Million is used up for clean-up of the Bermite soil.
The practical reality at this time is that: (1) The Newhall County Water District’s closed drinking water wells were not reopened, so they got nothing out of their massive expenditure for attorneys fees to sue Whittaker and got nothing out of the $50 Million settlement, (2) The huge-volume-producing Stadium Well owned by Santa Clarita Water Company is still out of service and there are no public plans to use any part of the $50 Million received from Steadfast Insurance to install equipment to remove perchlorate and VOCs from the water in that well, and (3) CLWA has used virtually all of the $50 Million to install equipment at Santa Clarita Water’s two closed drinking water wells on the west side of Bermite to remove perchlorate from the water. With respect to that perchlorate-removing equipment: (A) the volume of water coming out of that perchlorate-removal equipment is not as great as the volume of drinking water the wells previously produced, and (B) the water coming out of the perchlorate-removal equipment is still contaminated with high levels of VOCs, so it cannot be used for drinking water or dumped in the Santa Clara River, but instead must be “blended” with other water CLWA controls and that VOC contaminated water from those two wells is being distributed to residential consumers throughout Santa Clarita. CLWA says it is going to buy equipment to remove VOCs from the water coming out of the perchlorate removal equipment, but the source of the funding to do that is not clear.
In essence, CLWA/Newhall Land’s lawyers’ shut down the Whittaker/Bermite trial, settled for less money than was needed and signed a release cutting off the ability to collect more money to clean-up perchlorate contamination. That strategy has left Santa Clarita’s public water agencies as beggars seeking Federal funding to install more equipment to remove perchlorate and VOCs. The alternatives to Federal funds are reving-up the litigation against Whittaker and DOD (as to the VOCs only) or CLWA raising taxes and fees passed on to water consumers.
Meanwhile, Whittaker and DTSC are working throughout the Bermite property to find ways of removing perchlorate and VOCs from the wet soils that contaminate, to varying degrees, Santa Clarita’s drinking water. In some cases, such as a large “blob” of highly VOC contaminated wet soil in the hillside above the Santa Clarita Metrolink Station, the probability of that wet soil contaminating Santa Clarita’s ground water supply in the “alluvial drinking water aquifer” is very direct. In other cases, as to large concentrations of perchlorate and VOCs high up in Bermite Mountain, they are unlikely to ever be removed. Some areas of perchlorate and VOC contamination at Bermite affecting the drinking water are “in between”, flowing into the drinking water supply and very, very expensive yet feasible to remove.
As to the VOC and perchlorate contamination at Bermite, whether or not it will be removed as a source of contamination of Santa Clarita’s drinking water supply is a political question, which will largely be decided by DTSC, Whittaker and its insurers. The public, the local water agencies and the City can LOBBY for clean-up of perchlorate and VOCs which are contaminating the drinking water supply at areas where equipment hasn’t been installed yet. However, lobbying isn’t always successful.
The reality is that public agencies MAXIMIZING their claims about how much clean ground water exists in Santa Clarita for drinking water supply is essential to continued real estate development in Santa Clarita. As a result, rhetorical MINIMIZING of the quantity of ground water which is contaminated and which could not be counted as drinking water is essential. In short, the numbers for Santa Clarita’s real drinking water supply are chimera created by hydrologists who work for CLWA, and coincidentally for Newhall Land.
The City’s and County’s pro-more-development forces then rely on that chimera to say that there will be enough clean water for Santa Clarita’s future residents, without water rationing. The truth as to future water supply is, however, dependent on DTSC, Whittaker and their insurers.
Buck McKeon has been successful over the years, in obtaining earmark money to assist in clean up of contaminated soil and water at Bermite. If the earmarked cash flow for Bermite disappears, then the chimera must be all the more grand. Like Mickey Mouse the wizard waiving his wand to create more clean water.
It’s like Berta with proper paragraphs! Woo!
As an attorney, CS is paid by the hour… so it makes sense that they’d be long winded… brings a bigger paycheck!
No Todd, I’m not paid by the hour. I make comments because I care about the people and taxpayers of Santa Clarita and how they are taken advantage of by….the universe.
@Gang Fang: I am not an attorney, my comments are free of charge (long winded or not), and you do not have to read them.
Oh. Ok.
This the most corrupt, uncaring City Council we have ever had, and time after time they get away with unethical, illegal acts and they now know they can do anything they want. Poor Laurie Ender, it is now obvious she is the worst of the lot, and her own words have come back to haunt her. So, Laurie, was it out of context when you claimed thatt unless city hall is filled with about 6,000 people, the comments from those speaking do not count? We all heard you say that more then once, Laurie. We have heard you laugh at speakers, and we have heard your uninformed comments meeting after meeting. Enough said, the list goes on. Your comments AT council meetings speak for themselves, and the videos are right on the mark.
As for Marsha, she is a rude, nasty piece of work. Did you all hear her denial when David Gauny reminded them of their rude remarks to speakers regarding the library issue at the last meeting before hiatus? Yep, Marsha denied the rude comments made to speakers, but its all on the CD, and The Signal even quoted Frank’s own comments. But Marsha figures she can deny the truth.
Did Frank NOT spend $12,000 in an illegal manner for Laurie Ender’s campaign? How was that illegal act taken “out of context, Laurie?” How were Frank Ferry’s continual threats aimed at David Gauny taken out of context? He did make several vile threats that clearly showed how much hatred the man is capable of, but now he claims his nasty unacceptable spews are “just jokes.” Anyone dumb enough to believe that?
Come on, anyone who has the ability to see right from wrong should be thanking Not a Ferry Fan for all his hard work presenting THE TRUTH about our disgusting City Council from being completely swept under the carpet. With the exception of Bob Kellar, we should all feel feel the outrage with these idiots.
I thank NAFF for reminding me what type of insular and paranoid doucheguzzler I should teach my young daughter to avoid in life.