Non-school related sports organizations, such as AYSO, for children and adults are advised to cancel outdoor practices in areas where there is visible smoke, soot, or ash, or where there is an odor of smoke. This also applies to other recreational outdoor activity, such as hikes or picnics,  in these areas.

The following recommendations will help protect you and your family from harm effects of bad air quality:

• If outdoor air is bad, try to keep indoor air as clean as possible by keeping doors and windows closed. Air conditions that recirculate air within the home can help filter out harmful particles. Avoid using air conditioning units that only draw in air from the outside or that do not have a recirculating option.
• People can participate in indoor sports or other strenuous activity with visible smoke, soot or ash, provided the indoor location has air conditioning that does not draw air from the outside, and it has closed windows and doors to protect the cleanliness of indoor air.
• If you have symptoms· of lung or heart disease that may be related to smoke exposure, including severe coughing, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, wheezing, chest tightness or pain, palpitations, nausea or unusual fatigue or lightheadedness, contact your  doctor immediately or go to an urgent care center.

The Department of Public Health is committed to protecting and improving the health of the nearly 10 million residents of Los Angeles County. To learn more about Public Health and the work we do,  please visit http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov, visit our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/lapublichealth, or follow us on Twitter: LAPublicHealth.

Carmen, please tell us first about your own background and wine interests: 

Growing up in Germany. and spending all my childhood summers in Italy, I learned very early on the secrets of winemaking because my dad’s parents owned some vineyards – as is custom in the southern part of Italy. On my German side, my grandfather is very passionate about wine, and we used to visit local vineyards at harvest times that are close to my hometown in the south of Germany. 

Why do you say that Italian wines are better than American wines for those that suffer from headaches? 

The winemaking laws in Europe are very strict in regards to altering the process and adding chemicals to it, like preservatives and sugar. The laws have been in place since the 13^th century and are almost the same today. So what causes the headaches are mainly the added sulfates and/or sugar. Since the laws aren’t as strict in the U.S., there are a lot of ways to add chemicals to the wine than in the old country. 

I know you like Italian wines better than American in general, why should readers learn more…what are they missing?  

Well, there are good wines out here too, it depends strongly on the year. The big difference between Cali wines and European wines lies in the combination between soil, quality of the grapes, temperature and water. Also important are the additives. For example in Germany the wine grows best on volcanic soil, certain temperatures in the summer and a very cold winter. I noticed Cali wines are very acidy in comparison to Italian wines. 

Where do you like to go for wine in Santa Clarita? 

La Chene would be a good place, and anywhere they serve international wines. 

Highlights from the SCV Wine Calendar 

Local Tips: There are plenty of Happy Hours every night – see the SCV Wine Calendar on my blog. 

Find Eve at these two excellent Wine Tastings outside of Santa Clarita: 

Wally’s 7th Annual Central Coast wine and food tasting in Westwood this Sunday August 1 for almost 150 wines, silent auction, and signature dishes from renowned restaurants like Spago, CUT and Cache.   

And learn all about the Rhone Rangers next Sunday 8/8 at Pier 39 West in Santa Monica with 35 different wineries, artisan cheeses and tapas. 

Yours, in wine and out,

Eve Bushman- commentary

Eve Bushman is a local writer that specializes in writing about wine. You can find great articles by Eve on her blog at http://www.evewine101.blogspot.com or email her at ebushman@earthlink.net. Her commentaries represent her own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization she may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon. Eve also writes at http://scvelitemagazine.com and you can follow Eve’s Wine 101 on Facebook and Twitter! 

Despite only writing a handful of columns for the month of January of 2009 and having about half of those cut by management when he was brought back to The Signal, John Boston was named Best Humor Columnist in North America by The National Society of Newspaper Columnists in 2009. He has been a weekly columnist for The West Ranch Beacon since July 2009 to the delight of his many fans.

This brings the total number of national writing awards for John Boston to an impressive 119 and counting. You can read John’s weekly column, “The Boston Report”, every Wednesday right here on The West Ranch Beacon, the Santa Clarita Valley’s most accurate, timely, and free online local news source!

WAY, WAY BACK WHEN —

— The year 1876 was an exceptionally busy time, with the founding of Newhall, opening of railroads, the nation’s centennial and the moving of the historic Pioneer Oil Refinery. The original digs were by Eternal Valley, at the old Lyon Station. They moved it to it’s present-day location at Pine Street on August 1, 1876, where it became the first successful commercial oil refinery in California.

— For a short time, Saugus had its name changed to Surrey. A brand new post office was established at the Saugus Train Station (Saugus was the boyhood home of town founder, Henry Mayo Newhall), but the P.O. called it Surrey. Interestingly, Surrey was the middle name of silent film super star, William S. Hart. But, there is no known linking of the two names. It’s just a coincidence. 

JULY 29, 1920 —

— A brush fire closed the highway into Newhall and threatened the Sunshine Inn near the road tunnel. Fifty volunteers raced over to put it out.

— The teaching staff of Newhall Elementary consisted of three. Bill Ringnalda was hired as principal and Miss Lora Daugherty was one of two teachers. Before the days of in-class parental help and teachers’ aides, Lora taught third, fourth and fifth grades. By herself.

— Unless we get hit by a meteor, I don’t think we shall see these days again. Back on this date in 1920, there were 12 homesteading claims for 160 acres each in the Santa Clarita. Today, many of us live in condos and don’t even own elbow room or land. 

JULY 20, 1930 —

— California Governor C.C. Young was at the grand opening of the Weldon Canyon/Highway 99. A rope was sliced at the 160-foot cut out of the mountain. Young’s car, with the license plate of “1,” was the first car to drive through Highway 99, which is called the Old Road today.

— Three Hollywood teens, driving a used Ford they purchased for $8, ran out of gas in Saugus. The lads weren’t exactly rocket scientists. One, Jerome Yandal, lit a match so he could see better down the pipe to the gas tank. Yup. The car blew up real good, singeing the trio.

— George Mulry, civilian employed at Sheriff’s sub-station 6 on San Fernando Road and 6th Street, went for a hike through the Newhall Train Tunnel. Half way through, he heard a freight coming. There are several cut-outs within the long tunnel for just such emergencies. Problem was, Mulry was equidistant from the safety holes. Said a friend: “He flattened himself against the wall so flat that his ribs cracked, closed his eyes, said his little, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ only he said it with different words, and awaited the end.” Fortunately, Mulry survived the ordeal, shaken, ears dead and completely covered with soot. Seems I remember doing something like that when I was a kid… 

JULY 28, 1938 —

— On this date, the old Newhall HIGHWAY tunnel — not to be confused with the Newhall RAILROAD tunnel — was blown up and filled in. From 1910, folks used to go to and fro to the San Fernando Valley via this big tunnel under what is today Sierra Highway, south of Newhall. This original tunnel was wooden, one of the longest in the United States. In 1924, the tunnel was reinforced with steel and concrete and rededicated. It was 16-feet wide and 21-feet high — just about big enough to get Bob Lee’s Ford Expedition through. Before they dug the tunnel, there was a steep road that went over the hill, next to Beale’s Cut. The road had a 29 percent grade and it quickly became obvious that a hill that steep wasn’t going to work. One problem was gravity carburetors. The old cars had to back up the hill so they could get gas to the engines. 

JULY 29, 1940 —

— Signal editor Fred Trueblood summed this one up nicely: “Prominent big shots of Los Angeles this week attended the unveiling of a beautiful concrete memorial to the late William Mulholland, builder of the Los Angeles aqueduct and the San Francisquito dam. A large concrete memorial to Mr. Mulholland also remains in the canyon, but no L.A. big shots ever attend it.” Trueblood was referring to Mulholland’s dam which burst in 1928, killing 500 people and causing millions in damage.

— A couple of weeks after a woman lost her husband and six children when a grape truck hit her head-on at 90 mph, another fruit traffic accident occurred on old Highway 99. A peach truck ran out of control, crossed the center lines and hit a family car filled with eight. One died, seven were critically injured.

— Citizens were treated to a dark parade as America readied for war. Approximately 10,000 troops, tanks, cannons, jeeps, supply cars, trucks and even 1,700 horses took a week to pass through Newhall and Saugus on a series of trains going from Los Angeles to Washington state.

— Idiots and hunting frequently go hand in hand. While most outdoorsmen leave no mark, there are those few, well, that some ranchers would just love to string up. Skelton Brooks in Sand Canyon discovered some deer hunters — illegally hunting preseason — had crossed his property. They shot holes in all his galvanized drinking tanks for his cattle.

— Backwoodsman Tiller Brutch came into town for supplies and was surprised at the latest fashion — shorts and sunsuits. Brutch recalled living in Kansas earlier and witnessing several young girls being arrested and they had on more clothes than the 1940 Newhall beauties. Well. We’ve always been a trend setter.

JULY 29, 1950 —

— An arsonist was blamed for setting three fires, including one in Lake Elizabeth that nearly killed 50 Boy Scouts camping there. The lunatic had hung several balloons filled with gasoline along a brush line, then set the “fuse” with a highway flare.

— The Korean War visited the Soledad Township (what the SCV was called from around 1938-1960). Local draft board No. 85 was formed. Men 18-25 were ordered to sign up for physicals. My dad, Walt Cieplik, who fought in World War II, was in the Army Reserves. He didn’t re-enlist and missed being called to fight in the Korean War by five days. I was three months old.

— Perhaps the most dangerous place in the valley to work, Bermite was hit by another explosion. A flare shack blew up, sending flames — not smoke, but flames — 200 feet into the air. The paint from fire trucks a half-football field away was blistered off. Damage was $75,000.

— Placerita oilman Tim King was sued for $2 million by former partner, Tom Sidwell. Sidwell said King defrauded him while he was in jail for securities fraud. When King found out he was being sued for $2 million, he smiled and said to his riggers: “Look fellows. All of a sudden, I’m a millionaire!” 

JULY 290, 1960 —

— Locals predicted dire consequences as an aftermath to the 30,000-acre brush fire up Sand Canyon the week before. Folks were worried that the denuded hillsides would be the perfect setting for mudslides and flooding for the upcoming winter. They’d be right.

— County road crews worked all week to knock down the historic entrance to town at San Fernando Road and Newhall Avenue in front of Hart Park. The present-day archipelago was built 40 years ago and in the process, they knocked over the old dedicated bird bath built to honor the lovable oldtimer Dick Lindsay, who spent his final years feeding the local birds. (This has been one of my losing battles over the years, trying to get Hart Park to rebuild that wonderful little bird bath that was dedicated to the loner Lindsay who fed birds over the years. I just always have a huge problem when the public — in this case, a poor woman who used her own money to build the bird bath in Lindsay’s honor — erects a monument and someone in government takes it upon themselves to tear it down.) 

JULY 29, 1970 —

— You hear of these stories back east, but certainly not around here. The state had to dish out $160,000 to repair to bridges north of Castaic. Seems that CalTrans was using too much salt to melt winter’s snow on Highway 99. The salt ended up corroding concrete and steel in the bridges and they had to be winterized in July.

— Cesar Chavez showed up at a fruit pickers’ strike against Newhall Land & Farming Co. The labor leader lent his support to some 200 farm workers who were picketing for higher wages and benefits from the local übercompany. Chavez and local labor leader Benjamin Aparicio, came to terms with NL&F officials. Get this. The dispute was over the fact that NL&F wouldn’t tell the pickers how much they would make before they started picking. Do you think a young Tom Lee was behind that one…?

— State highway engineers and geologists ignored reports of an ancient landslide while building roads near Princess Homes. Several brand new houses were lost when the road crews started shifting land. Reports of the ancient underground splits were ignored by state officials.

JULY 29, 1980 —

— Believe it or not, we used to have some beautiful lawns and a fountain at our county civic center. Budget cutbacks, a heat wave, a drought and some miscommunications amongst the maintenance crew however allowed the lawn to dry up and plants to die. The fountain, bureaucrats figured, cost too much to run.

N Vicious darn July in 1980 with the AVERAGE temperature being 102 degrees and four days in a row at 110 or better. I remember putting 100-pound blocks of ice in the Olympic-size pool just to make it bearable. Sorry. I know. Life was tough.

— — — 

See you in seven. Vayan con Dios, amigos!

“The new fare structure offers more options for our riders, whether they use our local or commuter service,” said Mayor Laurene Weste. “Our bus fare is lower than most other agencies, making our Transit system accessible to everyone in our community.”

Single rides on commuter routes will increase by 25 cents. The fare for the North Hollywood Route 757, the newest Santa Clarita Transit commuter route, will remain the same rate of $2.50. Reduced fare rates will also remain the same. Monthly commuter passes will increase an average amount of $25, depending on the route and type of pass selected. 

Los Angeles County has contributed $2.3 million to the City of Santa Clarita transit system this year. This insures busses for the Los Angeles County unincorporated areas, the Commuter busses and shuttles.

To view the new transit fare structure online, visit santaclaritatransit.com. For more information please contact Brendie Heter, Administrative Analyst for the City’s Transit Division, at 661-295-6304 or bheter@santa-clarita.com  

When I was in the 9th grade, my best pal was John Dunkin. His dad was dean of The Master’s College, called L.A. Baptist back then. In all my years of knowing John, I never heard him swear, unless, of course, you consider the phrase, “jock strap”  cursing.

While teen-age boys were freely distributing all manner of verbal graffiti into the ozone, the easily-frustrated John would just utter a “Oh … JOCK!” or disgruntled “STRAP!!”  or when life turned really rotten, “JOCK STRAP, GOSHDARN IT!!”

Even that was followed by an apology.

I seem to recall that the Baptist powers that be eventually caught up with John and he was dutifully stripped of even that small avenue of emotional expulsion. My 9th grade friend died young, several years ago.

Life is so much different today. Public swearing and coarseness is common and it’s not just the words. It’s the anger, the contorted face, the boastful ignorance, the uncaring arrogance of usually the sub-27 unwashed men and women age groups.

I remember several years back, a non-local nearly went to jail for swearing.

A Michiganite, aptly named Timothy Boomer, was arrested for using the English translation of the cartoon speak: “Racka-fracka dirty ¡#*@£!!§¶o!!. mangy coyote.”

The 24-year-old man was arrested at a crowded beach in Traverse City for swearing. A whole heap. Mr. Boomer fell out of a canoe and let loose — no pun intended — a 3-minute stream of invectives that some witnesses said could be heard a quarter mile away.

Racka-fracka mother lug wrench-WRENCH-WRENCH!!!” Ten thousand bathers are silently transfixed as the verbal malady echoes down the beach.

County judge Allen C. Yenior upheld a 102-year-old Michigan law that makes it illegal to use profanity in front of children. After an unscheduled exit from that canoe, Boomer wouldn’t stop swearing, uncaring that a woman and her two small children were just a few feet away, their hair and ears blowing toward Canada from Boomer’s description of his mother’s procreational abilities, spiced with various scatological diatribes. A sheriff’s deputy, like a mime walking against the wind, finally arrested Boomer. Sadly, he didn’t get the full 90 days in jail and a $100 fine, as the 1897 law stipulates.

My own feeling was that it would have been delightfully poetic if Mr. Boomer ended up sharing a holding cell with a 7-foot-tall defrocked Presbyterian minister/militia leader with little bloodshot bee-bees for eyes who just axed everyone at the church picnic and can’t stomach profanity.

“If Mr. Boomer’s words, when used as they were, were constitutionally protected speech, then a person could stand on a crowded public beach and shout those same words all day,” Judge Yenior ruled. “This cannot be what the framers of the Constitution and the First Amendment intended to protect.”

Music to my ears.

I’m no prude. I swear like a trooper every rare once in a while — mostly in the privacy of myself — after hitting a thumb with a hammer or watching anyone remotely involved with Washington on C-SPAN. But swearing in front of people, especially strangers and children? It’s rude. It’s low class. It’s boring and ugly. In its worst forms, it’s naked aggression. I don’t think we need to force a bar of Lava soap into Mr. Boomer’s deep-caverned and calloused mouth. But a nice little metaphorical zen stick tap to the top of his head would be appreciated, even 2,000 miles away.

Alas, Mr. Boomer will be represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which says the 1897 law under which he is charged is unconstitutional and violates the drunken canoeist’s right to free speech.

I look to the left. I look to the right. I look behind me. Are there any children around?

The ACLU?

I wouldn’t yell it in front of the women and children, or on a crowded beach as this is the sub-zero doldrums of February, but can I offer a low-volumed, “Racka-fracka-racka them and the horse they rode in on”? 

John Boston is the preeminent local writer and humorist who has won over 118 national writing awards. He is a wonderful human being and it is a privilege to call him a friend. John will continue to live in the Santa Clarita Valley and write about anything and everything. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.

(From the Signal)

The extension to spring allows rate payers to continue filing protest forms and for a discussion on alternatives to also continue. No rate increases will be considered until the spring.

A little more than one out of every 10 ratepayers protested the proposed rates in writing, although challengers to it packed City Council Chambers Tuesday night.

It was standing room only by the time the meeting got under way nearly a half-hour late.

Read more here: Board delays sewage-fee increase until the spring

A special training for volunteers has been set for Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at the City of Santa Clarita Activities Center, located at 20880 Center Pointe Parkway.  Registration will begin at 9:30 a.m. and the training session will be from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The advocacy training organization is giving us a special price of $75 per person for the four hour training.

“When victims of domestic violence go to court, they are often scared and intimidated.  Having a trained advocate to provide that moral support makes a world of difference,” explains Tracy West, Executive Director for the Domestic Violence Center. 

The committee’s expectation is that all of the people who take the training will sign up to be a court advocate volunteer.  The training is open to all community members.

For those who do not wish to take the training but want to sponsor someone to receive it, there is also an “Adopt an Advocate” program where other members of the community can donate any sum they would like to help pay for the training of Domestic Violence Center staff to become Domestic Violence Court Advocates.  On average, the Domestic Violence Center needs $250 per staff member to cover the cost of their training.

Checks can be mailed to: P.O. Box 220037, Newhall, CA 91322- Please write on the check memo area: “DVCAP Training.”  To sign up for this exciting new program, please email: t.westDVC@gmail.com or call Tracy West at 661-259-8175 ext. 12. 

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 is the final day of the Sanitation District hearings and there is a peaceful protest rally planned for in front of Santa Clarita City Hall starting at 4:30 PM that afternoon. Residents are encouraged to bring signs (on topic) to protest this proposed rate hike and speak out against it at the ensuing hearing which begins at 6:30 PM in City Council Chambers. Santa Clarita City Hall is located at 23920 Valencia Boulevard in Santa Clarita.

For those that can not attend the meeting, clink here to get the Sanitation Department Protest forms and go to the L.A. County Assessor’s office  for your parcel number look-up. All SCV residents/businesses should consider filling out and returning the protest forms which the Sanitation Department mailed on June 11.

The validity of the current reports setting the chloride standards for the downstream avocado and strawberry crops is being seriously questioned. There is a need for a valid science based study which should be completed on this subject before any rate increase is approved.

Here are some of the facts surrounding this issue:

• The State Department of Public Health and the EPA’s figures state that the human body can safely ingest 250mg of sodium chloride  per liter
• The water that SCV residents receive is roughly 140mg/liter; this is because there is naturally occurring salts present in the ground everywhere.
• Residents are NOW being required to reduce the sodium chloride to 117mg/liter, despite the fact that it is 140mg/liter when we receive the water
• The citizens of SCV have already paid dearly to turn in their water softeners under a program that this administration promised us would take care of the problem. It has, during non-drought years, but during drought years, sodium chloride levels are understandably higher
• The first four year rate increase will be $8.09 per sewage unit (household) per month, to pay for an Environmental Impact Report, preliminary planning costs, facility planning and consultants galore. After the first four years, it will increase to $49 per household per month until 2022 to actually build an unnecessary plant.

Historically, the Clean Water Act required, in 1978, that the Santa Clara River should be allowed no more than 100 mg/liter of salt, to be measured where pipes go from L.A. County to Ventura County.

In 1997, the L.A. Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) proposed to revise the standard, except in SCV and Ventura County to 143 mg/liter. This proposal failed in 2000.

In 2003, the Sanitation District board banned the installation of new salt-based water softeners. In 2006, the RWQCB reconsidered the total maximum daily load and established a chloride guideline concentration of 117 mg/liter. 

In 2008, the SCV Sanitation District proposed, and SCV voters approved Measure “S”, requiring that SCV residents get rid of their salt-based water softeners by June 30, 2009. Community members were told that it was far better to do this than to hit property owners with a four-fold tax hike to build a $500 Million dollar water-treatment plant, complete with a brine line to the sea.

Let your voices be heard either in person tonight, Tuesday, June 27, at Santa Clarita City Hall.

Now, the usual local eco-terrorists are trying to convince residents again that a well thought-out project should be stopped. It is the same old broken record and is reminiscent of that meeting last year. Here is what I wrote about the meeting last June:  

I have been very picky and choosey over the years as to what community meetings or events to attend and which are not worth my time. As a community volunteer you have to manage your participation or it becomes an all consuming and overwhelming situation. Even the monthly homeowners association, which I attended monthly, has dropped down to every couple of months unless there is a pressing issue.

But last week I decided to do a little civic duty and attend the Army Corp of Engineers public meeting on the Newhall Ranch development.

You see the folks at Newhall Land have been attending our community meetings regularly and have kept our community abreast of the Newhall Ranch project including taking seriously any concerns and/or suggestions that our residents or community leadership may have had. They have, as well, supported the community over the years through thick and thin. This was my chance to reciprocate a little.

Pulling into the parking lot at the Rancho Pico Jr. High School, where the meeting was scheduled in the multipurpose room, I saw a group of protesters with placards in front of the entrance. Alright, it was more like a group of 20-25 milling about and most of them were unfamiliar looking. In other words they were people from outside the West Ranch area and in some instances outside of the Santa Clarita Valley.

I have to give the Army Corps of Engineers credit for dealing with loons, crack-pots and generally erratic, unstable individuals at these types of meetings. They truly get to see the concentrated and sometimes demented underbelly of a community.

Note to Congressman McKeon: Consider extending combat pay to the Army Corps of Engineer soldiers for enduring excruciating community meetings populated with a lopsided number of miscreants and halfwits.     

Once the meeting got underway, I observed a disproportionate absence of decorum. Members of the audience, mostly those associated with the environmental groups, were prone to shouting out comments and questions without regard for courtesy. Simply raising your hand would have sufficed.

Honestly, at one point I thought I might have stumbled into a Tourette Syndrome support group meeting. 

One woman came in and sat in the last row, furthest from the speakers, and started blurting out in a snarling tone; “I can’t hear you”, to the speaker several times. After about the third time I turned and suggested, as did several others, that she might want to move up closer. She didn’t.

Note to Newhall Land: For the next round of community meetings consider buying a half dozen or so “Lee Majors Bionic Ear” pieces to have on hand for cranky elderly folks who are hearing impaired and insist on sitting in the back row. It will be the best $14.95 you’ll ever spend!

During a discussion of the Santa Clara River another woman, to my sheer astonishment, shouted out; “What’s a tributary?” My God I thought, how could a woman apparently in her 40’s come to a meeting which is discussing the possible mitigations to the river not know what a tributary was!

I immediately thought that; a) this person may have been unconscious much of her life; b) she must have grown up on some other planet without any water; and c) she will never be eligible to be a contestant of Jeopardy.

Honestly, how do you become an adult and not know the definition of a “tributary”?  

It was precisely at that moment that I closed my eyes hoping to be magically transported to my home where I could cork a bottle of wine and turn it into a tributary to my brain.

No sooner than the definition of a tributary was somewhat explained by the speaker than another member of the audience, a Ted Kaczynski looking character, shouted out; “what, you don’t trust Mother Nature?” An odd question but one I pondered for a moment anyway.

Sure Mother Nature gives us bountiful harvests, picturesque sun rises and sunsets but she also gives us earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, volcanoes, lightening induced wildfires, rouge waves and tsunamis. So no, I don’t trust Mother Nature much because she can be an unpredictable bitch.

Note to Army Corps of Engineers: Consider administering an intelligence test to individuals attending these public meetings. Ask question like; what’s a tributary?; or is Mother Nature a real person: True or False? It will help weed out the imbeciles and allow the meetings to run a bit more smoothly.  

 I have to say, the Ted Kaczynski looking character was a bit scary. He was taking copious notes right from the get go and at one point I thought that he was writing, in long hand, some kind of hallucinatory manifesto. He was one angry bastard!

Fortunately at this point the presentation was nearing the end and the comment period would start. I thought this was handled well in that they called three speakers at a time and then each would speak in secession. Essentially, the moderator only called out the speaker order after every third person as apposed to after each one.

I was reminded of a valuable lesson that evening from Larry Mankin, the CEO of the SCV Chamber of Commerce; get to these meetings early, fill out you speaker card immediately and turn it in right away. The speakers are taken in order of requests received so if you hand in your request first, you speak first. 

I was so envious of Larry because he got to speak first and shortly thereafter was able to leave. Me, I had to sit through a block of speakers regurgitating much of the same misinformation about water, land mitigations, development in general, and that damn weed, the San Fernando Spineflower.

Note to Environmental groups: It’s called the San Fernando Spineflower not the Santa Clarita Valley Spineflower and therefore should be repatriated to the valley south of us from whence it came. We could round up some volunteers to excavate the weeds from the Newhall Ranch property and redistribute them from our car windows as we drive around the San Fernando Valley.  

Some of the speakers were articulate and others completely unprepared. I suspected that several of the speakers really didn’t even know much about what they were saying, they were just mindless parrots. 

But generally, it was a hostel crowd of carpetbaggers many of whom came up from Los Angeles and the Valley to rail against the Newhall Ranch Project. Of course, the usual local suspects were present many of whom have become cartoons around Santa Clarita, neither taken serious, nor viewed as productive, and mostly laughed at.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if these environmental terrorists just decided one day to take the tact of meeting with the developers to initiate an open and honest dialogue with the intention of trying to find common ground and a way to create a win/win for all? The millions in legal fees that would be saved could actually be used to set aside even more open space!

The Newhall Ranch Project is setting aside 65% of the property to be preserved as natural open space, never to be disturbed by development, ever. There is a thoughtfulness going into the project that is intelligent; unlike the planning and building circus that occurred in areas of the San Fernando Valley years ago.

But I am convinced that if the project set aside 95% of the land as open space that many of these whack-jobs would be doing exactly the same thing in trying to prevent any building on the remaining 5%.

Those tactics have to stop because they are not productive nor is it accomplishing anything other than increasing the cost of homes, commercial space and hurting the local environment. The amount of time and resources being wasted battling these Eco-terrorists is in fact having a greater impact on our environment with missed opportunities to preserve more natural resources using the funds that otherwise are being spent on the relentless and often fruitless lawsuits.

By the way, the meeting on Thursday night June 11, 2009, was attended by about 50 or so people. There were about 25 that represented the Army Corps, Newhall Land’s employees and consultants, Fish and Game, and two Sheriffs Deputies. The other 25 or so ran the spectrum from legitimate, rational environmentalists to halfwit idiots.

What is sad about the attendance is that if local residents like something they are more apt to stay home and not come to these types of meetings just to say “hey I like this!” It’s sort of a “if it doesn’t affect me, I don’t need to speak up” kind of attitude. It is just as important to come out and support projects and issues that you like as it for the ones you don’t.

Note to self: Consider organizing a protest against environmental terrorists at the next local Army Corp of Engineering community meeting replete with placards supporting the open space of the Newhall Ranch Project, new homes, jobs, and maybe even burn an effigy of that Spineflower weed.

We need a real blast of grounded reality to show that commerce and environmental stewardship can coexist together benefiting our community, business and our valley wide ecosystem. It’s not an “either/or” proposition.  Now is the time to turn the tables on these interloping environmental carpetbaggers!!!

That meeting was a circus filled with individuals that were hell-bent on stopping any development. I would much rather look at each project on its own merits and determine how it will benefit our community. The Newhall Ranch project is a smart, well thought-out plan that will allow for 65% of the land to be set aside as open space in perpetuity and for more than 18,000 oak trees to be left intact and protected. It is vital that our community fully support this project which will allow for most of the natural beauty of the west side of Santa Clarita Valley to left intact.

The Army Corps of Engineers has extended the comment period for the Newhall Ranch project through Aug. 4, 2010. Don’t let outside interests dictate policy or development in our community. Please take a moment to write a letter of support for this valuable regional project that will bring local jobs, reduce freeway commuter traffic which in turn is good for the environment and many other benefits for our valley  and the local economy. The letters should be addressed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Regulatory Branch, Attn: CESPL-RG-2003-01264- AOA, 2151 Alessandro Drive, #110, Ventura, CA 93001.

Dave Bossert-Commentary

Dave Bossert is a community volunteer who serves on a number of boards and councils. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.