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

In the latest salvo to be fired in the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital expansion debate, Nota FerryFan shows some serious discrepancies between the spoken word and actual facts. This latest video has Craig Peters, Vice Chair of Henry Mayo Board of Directors saying one thing about available local medical office space and images of For Lease signs within a few miles of the Hospital. What was most interesting was that Mr. Peters is on the Hospital Board and is also an EVP of Commercial Real Estate for CB Richard Ellis. Is that a conflict or an asset? Check out this latest video here: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=HxokThNkmJc

The County of Los Angeles will examine how trauma and violence shapes the behaviors of young people of today as it will be conducting a one-day training (more…)

The Community Hiking Club will host a Save the Condors Stewardship Event and Magic Mountain Micro-trash clean up event this Saturday, October 4th. This is a micro-trash clean up (broken glass, bottle caps, etc.), litter and major dumping clean up as well. Condors have been known to eat glass shards and also feed them to (more…)

The Democratic Club of Santa Clarita will be hosting The Vice-Presidential Debate Watch Party this Thursday, Oct. 2^nd, at the Lampost Pizza located at 27661 Bouquet Canyon Road in Saugus. For directions call (661) 297-7092. The debate starts at 6pm, so please arrive by 5:30 to order food and drinks and socialize a bit. As always, all those interested are welcome.  

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds. Spacecraft soil experiments also have provided evidence of past interaction between minerals and liquid water, processes that occur on Earth. A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected (more…)

A federal judge in Honolulu has dismissed a lawsuit trying to stop the running of a giant particle accelerator outside Geneva, dodging the issue of whether it could actually cause the end of the world. (more…)

The West Ranch Town Council will hold their monthly meeting on Wednesday October 1, 2008 at the Tournament Player Club in West Ranch located at 26550 Heritage View Lane in the Westridge neighborhood at 6:30 PM. The meeting will include the regular updates (more…)

When they made Election Day in America, the chief planner must have been thinking about Cinderella and her night at the palace ball. Surely, all the people at that ball turned into who they really were as soon as the party was over.  Cinderella turned back into a cinder sweeper. Her party-girl sisters turned into their everyday nasty witches again. (more…)

For all of you on Main Street who have been watching the turmoil on Wall Street for the last few weeks, Monday’s shockwaves rattled even the most steadfast. The day began with the announcement that another big bank — Wachovia — had been taken over, just days (more…)

The mother of a newborn found dead in a trash bin two years ago has been convicted of murder in San Fernando. A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury deliberated for less than two hours Monday before finding 25-year-old Jacquelin Linaras guilty of first-degree murder and assault on a child reports the Associated Press in the Daily News. Deputy District Attorney Carolyn McNary says Linaras killed her infant shortly after giving birth in May 2006 by hitting the girl’s head on a cabinet. Linaras then dumped the body in a trash bin in a Santa Clarita mobile-home park where she lived.

A 5-year-old girl attacked by a pit bull in a family friend’s back yard in Simi Valley has died, authorities said Monday. Katya Todesco died Friday (more…)

California will begin reviewing potentially harmful chemicals used to make consumer products under a bill signed Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The law could lead to an outright ban of chemicals in household items that are determined to have negative health effects. (more…)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed two bills making it tougher for teachers who commit sex crimes to remain in California’s public schools. The new laws close loopholes in California’s teacher licensing system that had allowed some teachers accused or even convicted of serious crimes to remain in the classroom. (more…)

As congressional leaders and the Bush administration surveyed the damage done by the defeat of the $700bn bailout plan for the US financial industry, they vowed to continue the talks in order to find a way out. “We’ve got much work to do, and this is much too important to simply let fail”, said Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, on Monday night reports the Financial Times.

Congress will be closed for business until tomorrow evening for the Rosh Hashanah Jewish holiday, giving negotiators some breathing room to find a solution that could lead to fresh votes in the House and the Senate by the end of the week. (more…)

Sheriff’s Homicide Detectives are continuing their investigation into the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of a man at Lyons Avenue and Apple Street, Santa Clarita, on September 26, 2008. Detectives have learned that deputies responded to the location to investigate a call of an assault with a deadly weapon. (more…)

Going green may be heart healthy if the green you choose is pistachio nuts, according to researchers at Penn State who conducted the first study to investigate the way pistachios lower cholesterol. “We investigated mechanisms of action to explain the (more…)

It can be hard to hold the attention of an auditorium full of easily distracted college students, especially when they have laptops, cell phones and iPods nearby. That’s why professors are turning to clickers, hand-held devices that let students answer yes or no on multiple-choice questions with quick clicks, then see the results displayed on screens in front of the classes. (more…)

On Saturday September 20^th, the Inaugural TPC/West Ranch Art and Wine Gala was held at the Tournament Players Club in West Ranch. Without a doubt it was an extraordinary success for a first time event. The event grossed around $80,000 with the lions share going to a scholarship fund at CalArts. (more…)