I haven’t looked to see how many people turned out to watch Sgt. Ian Gelig depart to his resting place, but from where I stood, at least 200 people waited patiently for him. Single men and women, a motorcycle honor group, and entire families lined Pico Canyon to watch, to grieve and maybe provide a tiny bit of comfort to Gelig’s family.

People standing near me were in tears, and it was hard for me to retain my composure too. I hadn’t ever met Gelig, but from what I’ve read about him, he seemed to be a good man, and his fellow soldiers respected and liked him. The pictures on his MySpace page showed a man full of life and energy and he seemed to have quite a sense of humor too.

I wish I could have known him.

I am proud that so many people turned out to watch Ian and I hope that his family knows that we are thinking of them and that we will never forget Ian.

Rest in Peace Sgt. Gelig.

UPDATE:

Michael Yon, a military writer for the website Big Journalism.com, goes into some depth about what happened in Afghanistan the day Sgt. Gelig was killed. You can read about it here.

The film’s primary story arc relates to the unlikely romance between an “average” looking nerdy TSA security officer and a fantasically beautiful woman.

When reached for comments a spokesman for the TimBen Boydston campaign stated “One would have to be blind after seeing the photos of TimBen and his lovely bride Ingrid Boydston in his campaign materials and Facebook campaign page to not quickly come to the conclusion that these filmmakers had to be following him around!”

The question now becomes whether other SCV men in LWHM (“Lovely Women Homely Men) relationships will join the lawsuit, including Tim Myers, Don Fleming, Bruce Fortine and Bob Kellar.  Timothy Myers, Jr., an economcs major at the University of California-San Diego, is intrigued by the LWHM phenomenom due to his personal connection.

“All of the data relating to this phenomena is anecdotal and asserts causative factors like charm, wit, sympathy and a sense of humor,”  said Myers, Jr.  “My own mother just mumbles something about a sorority bet gone horribly wrong.  There has to be data to explain the somewhat inexplicable.”

Candidate David Gauny was unavailable for comment but his (most excellent) hair in a prepared statement released to reporters stated that the campaign would prepare a white paper on the issue of LWHM relationships as soon as it completed position papers on Artic mineral rights and the efficacy of proposed Greek budget austerity measures to resolve that country’s debt crisis.

Google has added Bicycling Directions and paths for the Santa Clarita Valley. It’s not complete, but it’s an amazing start:

In this map, I asked Google to give me directions from Valley Bicycles on Railroad Avenue to Regal Cinema in Canyon Country. As you can see, it routed me onto Newhall Avenue (not the best route, Walnut would be better, but better than Railroad!) onto 16th Street where it tells me to take the South Fork trail all the way up to the Soledad Canyon Bike path.

The routing is so detailed it largely duplicates the City’s trails and paths maps, including the street crossings on Soledad.

Mercifully for new cyclists, it doesn’t route you up Sierra Highway and its hills even though it’d be a shorter trip. (7.0 miles verse 9.8) But you can certainly drag your route that way if you like.

Notably, the maps don’t show Valencia’s paseo system, but those aren’t really good for transportation cycling anyway.

Here’s a video explaining the tool:

Way to go big G!

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.

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.

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!

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