Construction on Lilac Elementary School for 600 students in grades K-6 will begin on Aug. 1, 2002, and be completed one year later.
Lusardi Construction will be the contractor for the one year project on the site’s 39 acres. This schedule of building was approved by the VC-Pauma School board at its last meeting.
The plans call for 26 classrooms, plus two computer labs, a kitchen, multi-purpose room, administration room, library, with an amphitheater and courtyard.
A rickety wooden bridge barely strong enough to carry foot traffic is all that connects Lilac Road, just past Old Castle, to the future school site. The bridge will be replaced.
The project has had to jump over several environmental hurdles, Supt. Jeff Mulford explained.
Because it will have to build a new bridge across a mainly dry streambed to get from Lilac Road to the land, the school district may be required purchase one one half acre of wetlands in San Diego County to mitigate the Army Corps of Engineers’ concerns.
“We might be able to mitigate onsite,” said Mulford. The problem is to get the Corps of Engineers out there. Brian Mooney is working on assisting the mitigation of the environmental concerns.
Part of the 39 acres that comprise the site for the new Lilac School is in dedicated open space. For as long as they go to school there, the students will be surrounded by some of the most impressive oaks in Valley Center.
Remember Rodriguez
At the same meeting trustees held a moment of silence in respect for the late Henry Rodriguez, who was a Pauma School District trustee for five years.
“He will always be remembered for his devotion to educating children,” said Olivia Leschick, former superintendent for that district.
According to Dr. Mulford, Rodriguez made some legal history when he was a lad.
“Henry was the first Indian student to attend Pauma elementary in the 1930s. He was, at first, not allowed to attend because his parents did not pay property tax.”
Mulford said it is his understanding that a landmark Supreme Court decision at that time helped pave the way for federal impact aid to school districts who provide schooling for Indians and children of armed forces parents stationed in the area.
By DAVID ROSS
The foreman of the crew grading Woods Valley Ranch considers it harassment.
Barry Blanchard of TNT Grading in San Marcos, complains that one resident of Woods Valley Road has made “at least ten calls” to regulators, accusing the developer of not following the permitting rules.
“My biggest disappointment is the lying I’ve seen,” says Blanchard. “As far as I know they’ve contacted the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Game, county Health Department, State Water Quality Control Board, EPA, Humane Society, the Sheriff and environmentalists.”
“They” would probably be a misnomer. “Actually,” says Blanchard, “They’ve been called by one unique individual.”
That individual is Angela Radcliffe, a ten year resident of Woods Valley Road, who says she’s doing what the VC planning group and County ought to be doing: holding the developer’s feet to the fire.
She says she’s never called any regulatory agency and said that Newland Communities Inc. is breaking the law. “I’m not calling ‘every agency in the world’ and telling them they are in violation. I’m saying they could be in violation.”
So far, they haven’t been.
The Army Corps of Engineers, lead agency for many environmental matters, has received several phone calls and sent inspectors to the site twice on complaints from Radcliffe.
A representative of the Corps (who asked not to be identified), said the site is not out of compliance with any Corps permit.
Corps permits relate to any place where the development might discharge materials into the water, including wetlands. On that site that’s mainly Moosa Creek, a tributary to Moosa, and one pond. Two ponds on the land are not in the jurisdiction of the Corps because they don’t have a connection to other waters.
Such things as oaks and their preservation are outside of the purview of the Corps, although the developer’s environmental consultant says they are trying to save as many oaks as possible.
Brett Solomon, biologist for the County Dept. of Planning & Land Use, which issued the “habitat loss permit,” told The Roadrunner, “They are in conformance with everything that they are permitted to do.”
One of the most recent permits issued is for grading the development’s golf course.
When grading began, DPLU’s inspectors went to the property and gave Newland a stop work order until they developed “best management practices” for storm water management. Any development wanting to grade more than 50 acres is required to do that, said Solomon.
“Our department issued a stop work order until they got all requirements. They did them within a one day and they were issued a green light to continue.”
Brian Mooney, of Mooney & Associates, the project’s environmental consultant adds, “From an environmental standpoint. it has never been shut down for any violation of any permit.”
This is the incident Radcliffe points to when she says, as she has said at several public meetings, that the developer was “forced to stop work.”
Another incident involved corralling horses on the property a distance from a blasting site to demonstrate that it wouldn’t harm horses on neighboring properties.
This public relations fiasco was, Blanchard admits, his idea.
“Someone claimed his half million dollar horse was at risk from the blasting. It was my idea to bring my horses. In the process I ran into Pat Barrett and he brought a couple of his horses.”
Usually blast areas are cleared up to 300 feet, says Blanchard, and notify people at 600 feet.
“I wanted some backup for myself and Newland so I could stay out of a lawsuit. I put one horse on Woods Valley Road at 1200 feet and the one north of that at 1000 feet.
Barrett, a well known horse trainer and breeder in VC, called the Humane Society before he brought his horses over.
“We had two video cameras. We were going to put the horse in the corral and take its reaction to the shot,” said Blanchard. That was at 10 a.m. The blasting was going to take place at 1:30 p.m.
Then someone called the Humane Society and the newspaper and reported that the horses “were in a blast zone.”
“Newland suggested it was not a good idea, so we immediately tore the stuff down and they were in the trailers when the SPCA pulled up,” said Blanchard.
Radcliffe’s one woman campaign to shut down Woods Valley Ranch has so spooked Blanchard that he’s added extra security.
When The Roadrunner visited the construction site several weeks ago, we were asked not to photograph the workers, because James Delhamer, the local president of Newland, feared retaliation. When we asked for some background materials on Newland, Delhamer said we could have them only on condition that we not share them with anyone, particularly Radcliffe. We never got the materials.
Blanchard, who lives in VC on Anthony, says many of the 35 people working on the project are from Valley Center. “Six or seven guys from Valley Center work on the project. No body wants to see a nice piece of property graded, but if it’s already been approved, it’s kind of late.”
Using 14 scrapers, seven rock trucks and nine dozers, they started their work late in January.
“This is probably the most comprehensive job I have ever been on for environmental controls and adhering to the rules,” says Blanchard.
Much of the environmental monitoring is provided by Mooney, one of the most respected environmental consultants in the County.
“The key thing with this project is that it has gone through multiple reviews, for every conceivable thing, with the County and the State and the Army Corps of Engineers,” says Mooney.
His people onsite monitor compliance with environmental rules. They include a biologist, two archaeologists and six experts in Indian culture from the Pechanga Reservation.
“We serve as an intermediary between the developer and all the agencies, to make sure all permits are actually being obeyed,” he says. “We report to these agencies and then the agencies check on us.”
Blanchard is frustrated by the time given over to answering complaints.
“She has called at least times, and on no occasion has there turned out to be any validity to her claims. What is she trying to prove?” he asks.
“There has been five to six time the effort to this job as I have seen on any job.”
Radcliffe is trying to prove that, “They are doing a lot of bad things to the land,” she says. “Their paperwork and what they say are two different things. I don’t consider it harassment at all when you see this type of heinous destruction.”
She credits her whistleblowing about the fact that Newland was considering not building a golf course with forcing the spotlight on them to build it.
She called numerous agencies and said that the developer had no golf course.
One agency, the State Water Quality Control Board, sent a letter the VC Municipal Water District and told them that Newland’s treated water discharge permit was contingent upon a golf course.
Blanchard says the golf course was always part of TNT’s grading contract. The rocks dumped on Valley Center Road will be used on the golf course, he says.
Two weeks ago, Blanchard says, he hooked the developer with Peerless Golf, which has agreed to do the course.
Radcliffe says she’ll believe it when she sees a signed contract and a signed performance bond.
“I’d like to know where the driving range for the golf course is. They aren’t putting one in.”
She’s also worried that the project will significantly damage the groundwater, and impact the property where she lives, 1.5 miles down the road. She bases this on a groundwater study for the project she has read.
Radcliffe says she’s doing the job that the planning group and County should be doing.
“I’ve probably put in ten thousand hours. It seems I’m doing more work than the planning group to make sure this is done right.”
As for her activities being “harassment,” she says, “As a person who lives in this valley, and who will be directly affected by the traffic, the added noise, the fact that every time we drive by it, it’s so hard to look at that’s disturbing. It’s upsetting our personal life. I have a right to question them.”
The project has been on the books a dozen years. Why did she wait until now?
“Shame on me for not paying more attention before. My fault for not opening my eyes and paying more attention, because I’m paying the price for it now,” she says.
By DAVID ROSS
All four members of the newly elected committee to work with the California Cancer Register about an alleged cancer cluster in VC allow that they are frustrated that the Registry is not scheduling their first meeting until April or May.
However, three of the four appeared surprised Monday that one resident not on the committee, Tanya Snyder, doesn’t want to wait for the Registry to begin its work.
Snyder, acting, she says, at the behest of several original members of the group that contacted the Cancer Register, wrote a letter to the editor this week inviting the public to another meeting to take matters into their own hands.
“Due to overwhelming response,” she begins, saying a new meeting would be held March 16, 2-4 p.m. at VC Community Hall. She adds, “Officials from the Jan. 26 community meeting have failed to keep their promises. It is up to the community to work as a team to find the complete picture and make community decisions as to how we will proceed.”
This is a continuation, she told The Roadrunner, of meetings that took place among concerned residents since November.
“I’m just a resident,” she said. “I have friends on the committee. I was asked by the six people who spearheaded the committee to spearhead this because I have the time and because I’m the one who is called ‘The squeaky wheel.’ ”
Judy Silverman, one of the committee members, commented, “I don’t understand why she’s doing this when they just finished having the results of the election.”
That election was held on the internet at the Cancer Registry’s Valley Center Project website.
Mrs. Silverman added, “I don’t know who the ‘overwhelming response’ is from. Quite frankly, I would rather wait and speak with some of the researchers from the county and state before we say they haven’t responded. I don’t feel that way.”
Another committee member, Penny Gipson, whose daughter, Laura, died from brain cancer several years ago, said, “This is going to be a long process. It’s going to take a long time to do it properly if we are going to use the scientific method to find information and analyze it. Sensationalism and grand standing is not going to get us where we need to go. I’m as anxious as anyone. But I guess because I’m a nurse, I’m OK with using the process. They are keeping their promises.”
Kerry Carr, the mother of a brain cancer patient, admitted that she is frustrated and said Snyder’s action, “was to be expected. I guess as far as the Registry not doing anything, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that yet. I am little frustrated.
“They had said we would meet within a week, and I was informed that they will not be meeting with us until April or May. That is pushing something off way too far in the future when I thought the original agenda was to define the parameters early on.”
She sent an email this week to the Cancer Registry expressing her frustration and said she would follow it up with a phone call.
“I don’t have anything against what they [Mrs. Snyder] are doing. If some people can get together and get something moving in their own direction, they can’t hurt anything. It’s all to benefit the same thing. We all want to find out. It is frustrating that the government moves so slowly. It seems like it’s taking a long time.”
She added that she has heard that another child, an 8 year old, has been diagnosed with cancer in Valley Center (The Roadrunner was unable to confirm that at presstime).
Michael Cooper, another member of the cancer committee, whose son, Michael, was diagnosed last summer with leukemia, said he was unaware of Saturday’s meeting.
“This is unbeknownst to me. As far as her [Snyder’s] information goes she seems to be upset about the ongoing investigation. I don’t know what promises we are talking about being broken.”
Cooper added, “I just got a call last week saying I was elected to the committee. I was talking to some people about getting the ball moving. That meeting would give us a foundation to start from.”
Cooper concluded, “I don’t know what information she has that would lead her to believe that the investigation is stalling, based on the fact that at the Jan. 26 meeting they said it could take months and years.”
Mrs. Snyder told The Roadrunner she wants to pressure the County to look at adult cancer cases, not just those of children.
Asked on what she bases her suspicions that there is a problem with adult cancers, she said, “It’s an overall gut feeling.”
Mrs. Snyder doesn’t have any children with cancer, which is, she says, one reason she was asked to “spearhead,” this meeting. “It’s too much pressure for someone who does have a loved one with cancer. It’s going to take the squeaky wheel. I want to start the community meeting and see what happens. It may not go farther than that. It may not go farther than one meeting. That’s up to the community.”
BY ANNE SKILLION
When Homer “Skip” Skillion was born 100 years ago, the Wright brothers hadn’t yet flown the first airplane. Still in the future were the first radio broadcast, the first Model-T Ford, and the first antibiotics.
During his lifetime, he saw both world wars, the Great Depression, and the first man walk on the moon. But you would never know it to look at him. Resembling a dapper 75-year-old, he takes it all in stride, feeling fine and living on his own as one of the oldest members of the Lawrence Welk Champagne Village family (he lives at #105).
“Skip” was born March 12, 1902 in Portageville, Missouri, a small town south of St. Louis.
He made his career in the theatre business starting out at St. Louis’s Ambassador Theatre, where he rose through the ranks. In 1927 he got his big break when he was given the task of operating the palatial Indiana Theatre Complex in Indianapolis.
With its huge ballroom, beautiful lobby, and a 3100-seat auditorium, the Indiana Theatre was, in the midwest of that day, second only to the Trianon Ballroom and Theatre in Chicago and a challenging assignment for a 25 year old.
It was the era of vaudeville and the theatre featured such now legendary actors as Fanny Brice, Al Jolson and Wallace and Noah Beery, as well as some of the rising stars of a younger generation, including George Burns, Gracie Allen and Ginger Rogers.
It also maintained an excellent band led by Charlie David, with the singers Frankie Parish and Dick Powell, the latter better known today as the great Hollywood actor he later became.
Skip remained at the Indiana Theatre until after the Crash of ‘29, leaving for Southern California in 1931 to operate theatres in San Diego, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, and later in Pasadena, including the Pasadena Playhouse which, in its heyday, trained actors for Hollywood, many going on to successful careers.
After retiring in late 1967, he moved from the foothills of Altadena to Newport Beach, playing golf with his old friend and business partner, Jude Poynter, who was in the World Senior Amateur Golf Champion in 1971.
With their love for golf, he and his partner decided to follow a long time dream of building a golf course. So in 1990, Skip and his wife Rosemary and Mr. Poynter moved to Valley Center to try and make it happen.
Not long after, Rosemary passed away after a marriage of 52 years, followed some years later by Mr. Poynter. So the idea never came to pass.
Skip suddenly found himself alone with his four German shepherds. Looking for more two-legged companionship, he was happy to find a place at Lawrence Welk Champagne Village, where he could meet people and play a little golf. But a few months after moving in his eyesight degenerated too much to play golf any more, and he found time weighing heavily on his hands.
Pretty soon he wandered over to the pool room at the village hall next door to his house. Having played pool as a young man, he has found a lot of enjoyment playing with his fellows there. Although he is in fact legally blind, he’s happy to report that he’s somehow able to play a fairly good game of pool.
Skip is still remembered with affection by his golf buddies of years gone by. He will be honored at the Indian Wells Golf and Tennis Resort by the Senior Masters Amateur Gold Assn. during their tournament from April 15-19 this year.
Twenty-five years ago he was one of the original members of the tournament in its infancy when it moved from Half-Moon Bay to the desert. Today this most prestigious of all the amateur tournaments can boast the 250 lowers handicap golfers in he world.
Skip has three children and three grandchildren: Anne is an editor in the publishing department of the New York Public Library; Craig is a clerical accountant at the Edison Company in Santa Ana, and he and his wife Martha, a teacher, have a young daughter, Christine; Carol is a homemaker and volunteer, active in her church, who lives in Valley Center with her husband Mel Schuler, a school administrator.
The Schulers and their grown sons Nick and Chris are Skip’s nearby mainstays and all-around supporters and helpers.
The family is hosting a party for more than 100 guests at Champagne Village on March 17 in celebration of Skip’s milestone.
Asked about his sharpest memory of change during his lifetime, he recalls automobile speeding down the road at the incredible rate of 45 miles per hour, which, in those days, he says, was “like breaking the sound barrier.” We wish him many happy returns!
Bill Horn of VC, Fifth District Supervisor, won a third term in Tuesday night’s balloting.
As of a week later, the results of the balloting were as follows:
Bill Horn 43,414, 53.4%
Kevin Barnard 23,176, 28.5%
Patsy Fritz 14,655, 18.0%
With much the same line-up as in the primary of four years ago, except that it was Green candidate Kevin Barnard instead of Green candidate Jerry Harmon, opposing him, Horn was able to win another term in round one.
Locally, at VC’s eight precincts, Horn received 1092, compared to 476 for Patsy Fritz and 661 for Kevin Bernard.
At Hidden Meadows’ five precincts, Horn received 481; Fritz, 226 and Barnard, 269.
In Pauma’s one precinct, Horn received 56, Fritz, 61 and Barnard, 9.
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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