The West Ranch Beacon – News & Commentary for the Santa Clarita Valley

This December, the City of Santa Clarita invites community members to greet the Metrolink Holiday Toy Express as it make two stops in Santa Clarita to give holiday performances and collect donations for the “Spark of Love” toy drive. The festively decorated train will stop at the Newhall Metrolink station on Friday, December 4 at 7:30 p.m. and the Via Princessa Metrolink station on Sunday, December 20 at 8:15 p.m. (more…)

The City of Santa Clarita invites community members to attend the Grand Opening Celebration for the Phase IV expansion of the City’s Sports Complex. Join the Santa Clarita City Council at the event, slated for Wednesday, December 2 at 3:30 p.m. at the Santa Clarita Sports Complex. (more…)

(From Science Daily) On a 104-degree Friday in July when sunlight bathed The University of Arizona campus, doctoral student Dio Placencia sat before a noisy vacuum chamber in the Chemical Sciences Building trying to advance the renewable energy revolution. (more…)

The West Ranch Town Council will hold their last regular monthly meeting of 2009 on Wednesday, December 2, 2009, at the Tournament Player Club in West Ranch located at 26550 Heritage View Lane in the Westridge neighborhood at 6:30 PM. Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, 5th District, will be the guest speaker at this meeting. The meeting will also include regular updates from the Sheriff’s Department, the California Highway Patrol, Parks and Recreation, various County Departments and local HOA’s. (more…)

The following is a roundup of political activity going on in Washington and across the nation. It’s courtesy of Scott Wilk, Community Organizer, and Anchor Consulting group. The Beacon will be posting these daily as they become available. (more…)

Today marks the fourth anniversary of The West Ranch Beacon. To all of our loyal contributors and readers thank you for making the past four years truly memorable and successful ones for The West Ranch Beacon. Your continued readership, contributions, support, encouragement and comments have been greatly appreciated. (more…)

The City of Santa Clarita and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health will host a free, walk-in H1N1 vaccination clinic on Friday, December 4 at the City’s Sports Complex Activities Center. The event will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., or until the vaccination supply is depleted. (more…)

(From the L.A. Times) Ready to chuck his electric bills, Camarillo resident Marc Weinberg last year asked his homeowners association for permission to put solar panels on his roof. When the Spanish Hills Homeowners Assn. said no, Weinberg sued the group. Under the state’s Solar Rights Act, he argued, a homeowners association can’t unreasonably block solar installations. (more…)

(From the Financial Times) US consumers maintained their cautious mood over the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend, with industry analysts on Sunday estimating total sales at the ritual start of the holiday shopping season only slightly up from last year. (more…)

(From the AP) Winds have blown clouds of ash and dust from the vast area of Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains that burned in a summer wildfire. A brown stain marred the sky Sunday over foothill suburbs northeast of Los Angeles. (more…)

(From the L.A. Times) California’s highways saw an increase in fatal accidents over the Thanksgiving weekend. L.A. County recorded five traffic fatalities so far, but Orange County had recorded none. Among the most deadly of those accidents occurred in the Marin County suburb of Novato, where a car raced through a red light and slammed into a minivan, killing four family members, police said. (more…)

(From the Wall Street Journal) When Carly Fiorina sat down to speak with John Fund of the Wall Street Journal recently, he was briefly taken aback. The former CEO of Hewlett Packard and current candidate for U.S. Senate from California was sporting a close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hairdo. Having completed six months of treatment for breast cancer, the 55-year-old Ms. Fiorina has dispensed with the auburn wig she’d been wearing as her hair grows back. (more…)

(From the Sacramento Bee) Just before midnight, he saw it falling apart. Months of delicate negotiations and hardball confrontations; of meticulously drafted legislation that was torn up as soon as the ink was dry, only to be rewritten; of interminable hours in closed-door meetings and impromptu hallway huddles. (more…)

The U.S. Geological Survey reports that a small earthquake struck late Saturday night about 55 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. The magnitude 3.1 quake hit at 10:54 p.m. about two miles west northwest of Loma Linda. This comes on the heels of a swarm of earthquakes that have rattled the U.S./Mexico border region near San Diego in recent weeks.

Scroll down on the home page and you will see a red & white striped box with some special discounts just for our readers. If you are heading out shopping on Black Friday or anytime in the coming weeks you will want to check out these Holiday Specials just for you. The Picture Show, located at 23360 Valencia Blvd. in Valencia, is offering Beacon readers a 15% discount on your framing order. (more…)

Thanks to one of our readers for passing on this terrific piece that has recently come out about climate change from a PajamasMedia. As readers are now aware, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, the main climate research center in Britain, has had 128 megabytes of secret emails and other data placed online by someone calling himself “FOIA.” A number of scientists have been trying for years to get the raw data possessed by CRU placed online, filing requests under the British Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). (more…)

(From the AP) A Wal-Mart store in Southern California closed its doors for several hours before dawn Friday after some shoppers began fighting over bargain merchandise, police said. (more…)

(From the L.A. Times) In the first touch of winter, a cold Pacific storm is expected to produce snow in the local mountains, high surf along Los Angeles-area beaches, and a solid chance of rain throughout much of the region, according to the National Weather Service. (more…)

(From the N.Y. Times) Once upon a time, people mailed their holiday wishes to the North Pole and hoped for a reply on Christmas Day. Nowadays they are sending their wishes into cyberspace and are apt to get a reply in minutes. (more…)

(From the Daily News) Four people were killed in Thanksgiving holiday weekend traffic accidents in Los Angeles County, according to the California Highway Patrol. Last year, three people died in traffic accidents in Los Angeles County between 6 p.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Friday. (more…)