January 2, 2002 - Top Stories
Waiting for the road: VCMWD springs another leak as it holds off work on miles of upgrades
An old water main at Valley Center & Cole Grade roads burst early Wednesday morning cutting off service to about 75 customers and creating a major traffic crunch for most of the day.
The 12 inch water main was installed in 1955. "We think the break was a combination of corrosion and the age of the metal," VC Municipal Water District Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant told The Roadrunner on Thursday.
The break occurred at 2:30 a.m. The district was notified at 4:15 a.m. Crews were on the scene by 5 a.m.
Water was shut off to customers and was only restored by 6:45 p.m. The VCMWD crew of about 11 employees worked until 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.
They replaced a 4-5 foot section. About 7.5 acre feet of water ($4100 worth) was lost.
Digging out the main along VC Road created a major bottleneck at the Cole Grade & VC roads intersection, giving motorists a slight preview of what it will be like when road widening work begins next year.
Several local businesses were affected. For instance, Snappy's, which is right at the intersection, couldn't offer soft drinks or water to customers.
"Rest of the Story"
"The real story," says Arant, "is that we've wanted to replace that line since 1990, but we are waiting for the road widening project. We don't want to put the community through the hassles of digging up the road twice."
Over the years, he said, the County has changed the road project design two or three times.
"We don't know where to put the main until we get those plans," he said.
In the early 1990s VCMWD spent $50,000 on a complete design of the water system only to have the County completely change its plans.
"We hope the County moves forward with the road project in the next couple of years because the water lines in the roadway need to be replaced. They are a very important part of our water system. We would closely work with the County like we did with them on the Mountain Meadow Road Project to minimize the effect on the community. It makes a lot of sense if you do a major road project to replace the water main as well," said Arant.
Road Widenings
The County has two projects for widening Valley Center Road.
The first is expected to begin the middle of 2002, and extends from about Woods Valley Road to the Escondido city boundary at the bottom of the grade.
VCMWD has a pipeline in a small portion of this project north of Ridge Ranch Road that will be adjusted because the elevation of the road will be lowered several feet where it goes over the top.
The second project is from Woods Valley Road to east of Cole Grade Road, about 2.5 miles. The road is to be widened, straightened, and slightly adjusted vertically and is expected to begin about 6 months after the first phase, late 2002 or early 2003.
According to Patric Jewell, district engineer, the existing 10 and 12 inch water mains in the road were installed in the 1950s as tar wrapped steel.
They are nearing the end of their useful lives and the future needs of the central area of VC are projected for additional capacity.
VCMWD is preparing plans to install 12 inch, 14 inch and 18 inch mains made of ductile iron.
VCMWD is required to obtain approval for spending that exceeds the spending limits of around $1 million, and approval for this replacement project was obtained in an election in 1991.
"The VCMWD estimated costs are still very preliminary, and could be $2.5 to $3 million," said Jewell.
The County's plans show phasing to provide for traffic and relocation of utilities, and VCMWD is planning on extensive coordination with the County to maintain water service throughout the construction.
A draft County report obtained recently says the impact of Indian gaming on roads will be less than originally expected, according to a report in a local daily.
This development may prompt Indian tribes to seek to pay less money for road impacts than they had agreed to.
The update of the November 2000 Report on the Potential Impacts of Tribal Gaming on San Diego County used a different formula to reach its figures, which went from 130 cars per 1,000 square feet of gaming space in the old report to 100 cars/1,000 in the updated report. The new formula based its calculations on square footage devoted to gaming, rather than square footage of the entire facility.
In its original report, the County had estimated that 24,310 cars per day would travel on the rural two lane Hwy. 76 to reach Pala Casino, one of eight casinos that have opened in the Count since last year. The new figure is 6050 trips per day.
Estimates of costs to improve county roads to accommodate the casinos were lowered from $168 million to $155 million.
Three tribes, San Pasqual, Pauma and Rincon, although highly critical of the report, earlier this year agreed to pay the County a total $14.5 million. Some of them may ask to revisit those estimates.
The article quoted David Toler, a member of the three-member committee that runs San Pasqual's Valley View casino as saying that his tribe might want to revisit the matter.
"You'd think it would be a natural process," observed Rincon Tribal Chairman John Currier, interviewed last week by The Roadrunner.
"You'd think the County would be open to it and it would be the fair thing to do," he said.
This is particularly true, says Currier, because it's hard enough for tribal casinos to make it in this heavily competitive environment, with many tribal casinos to choose from.
"Particularly since the monies were basically a slush fund for the County to draw off on," said Currier.
"It's the fair and right thing to do," Currier said. "Is it fair for the tribes to put up these millions of dollars in these stated agreements that were inaccurate and to continue to hold them to these amounts that were based on the old numbers?
"I think our responsibility would be to ask the County to revisit the numbers. That would be serving our membership," said the Rincon chairman.
Grading has been completed, mounds of boulders have been moved, and framing has begun on the Valley Center Local History Museum, the first building to rise at the site of the new County Library complex on Cole Grade Road.
When completed in late 2002, the museum will showcase more than two centuries of local history through exhibits and displays of artifacts, memorabilia and historic documents.
The local history museum, which will share a four acre site with the new Valley Center Branch Library, is expected to attract large numbers of San Diego County school children during the year along with tourists who will be visiting local attractions such as Bell Gardens Farms, Bates Nut Farm, the Welk Resort, and area casinos.
Museum spokesman Bob Lerner said a regular series of temporary, traveling exhibitions will bring local residents back to the museum once they have viewed the initial exhibits.
Along with the museum, which will occupy about 1,400 square feet, history buffs can visit the adjoining 400 square foot Valley Center Room which will house the permanent archives of the Local History Committee, a unit of the Friends of the Valley Center Library, said Lerner.
Construction of the museum was made possible by a $250,000 gift from Abbe Wolfsheimer Stutz, who grew up in Valley Center, and Louis Wolfsheimer in memory of her parents, Col. Irving and Mrs. Cecile Salomon.
The Salomons operated historic Rancho Lilac, first laid out in 1865. The ranch remains in family ownership. Funds are still being solicited to complete interior spaces and to acquire certain artifacts not presently owned by the museum.
The museum will be open to the public without charge.
By DAVID ROSS
Part I
This is our annual wrap up of the year. But since it was SUCH a year, we invite readers to send us their own assessment of 2001 (no more than a paragraph, please!) that we'll publish in the next few weeks.
* * *
As Dickens observed about the French Revolution, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . ." Such a sentiment was never more appropriate than at the end of 2001, a year that [actually] began the Third Millennium, when Americans, after hauling themselves up from a fearful battering by the Forces of Ignorance, found themselves as a people transformed, perhaps forever.
We weren't the high tech colonizer of the Moon envisioned by Arthur C. Clarke in the film 2001 a Space Odyssey or the feeble giant that bin Laden apparently thought that we were. We were a society awake and aware, reborn and rebounded- a new America.
Valley Center was no different from the rest of America as a result of Sept. 11, which stands as both the high and the low point of the year. Our people were inspired and devastated and reacted to the attack with a new fervor of patriotism and caring for one another.
Let's take a look one more time at 2001 in Valley Center.
January
Rincon Casino, the first of two casinos to open in Valley Center after the passage of Prop. 1A, opened its doors-VC planning group had a new chairman, Phil Geddes- The community mourned the deaths of VCHS students Isaac Lawson and Rene Dawson, two popular and promising 17 year olds, who died after being in a car accident with another vehicle on Valley Center Road-Penny Phillips was honored as Citizen of the Year at the same Chamber of Commerce installation that saw Ann Godwin confirmed as CofC president.-Supervisor Bill Horn spoke before the newly constituted State Gambling Control Commission asking for more local control over tribal casinos.
February
The VC Trails subcommittee presented its vision of a Valley Center trails system to the planning group. The group threw out the half of the proposal that proposed connecting Valley Center's trails with other communities' trails, although it adopted a map showing public rights of ways for trails-Contraband sniffing dogs were to be used at Valley Center High School-Amber Bauer was selected Miss Valley Center 2001 from a field of five beauties- Longtime animal rescuer Bob Farner needed rescue from all things, the San Diego Humane Society and the San Diego District Attorney. Farner was charged with animal cruelty after he delayed putting a wounded deer out of its misery until he had visited his doctor for some heart medicine!-Farner vowed not to cop a plea, but to defend his reputation in court.
March
The high school was on heightened security after the shooting spree at Santana High School.-VC Sheriff's Lt. Maury Freitas requested more manpower from the Sheriff to deal with the increased activity resulting from two new casinos- The school district wants to ultimately absorb the land currently occupied by the water district, the County yards and the CDF station to deal with a growing student population.-The water district board voted to switch the district's retirement plan from a private plan to CalPERS, the state retirement plan-Ruth Parsons, one of the most enduring of VC's residents, was calling it quits as a Realtor and moving to live with relatives out of state-The County Dept. of Public Works said that it would have to renege on its promise to landscape the median strip for Valley Center Road, because it didn't have the money.
To be continued-
The Valley Roadrunner
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