By DAVID ROSS
The commercial owners of Valley Center’s southern node have responded to a County plan to marginalize them with a plan of their own: an expanded commercial zone friendly to pedestrians, with a lake and tree-lined walkways.
The Valley Center Country Town Property Owners, led by Pres. Steve Flynn, Monday night presented their concept to the VC planning group.
The group voted to support the concept: 8-3-1 Yes votes were: Larry Glavinic, Bruce Johnson, Carol Prime, Rich Rudolf, Frank Shoemaker, Sandy Smith, Jim Yerdon and Andy Washburn. No votes were Eric Laventure, Todd Ruth and Robert Hancock. Dick Kraus abstained.
Flynn commented on the County’s draft map, which allowed the southern node no room to expand while moving the focus of further development to the northern node (which contains the bank and library).
“We felt this sort of abandoned the business owners in that part of town. Rather than individuals complaining, we 50 property owners got together,” said Flynn.
“Rather than just object, we felt we should come up with something proactive,” he said.
Del Mar architect Bill Lewis presented the group’s concept, using a series of illustrations and artist’s renderings.
The so-called Southern node (or southern section of the Country Town), follows Valley Center Road from Lilac Road to Woods Valley Road. It includes 50 businesses.
“We want to make this a walking community,” said Lewis. To that end they identified a 15 minute walking radius from the center of the node.
There are 640 acres within this radius, with about 200 that are undeveloped.
The Woods Valley Golf Course and its development will anchor the proposed commercial center.
Lewis and the group focused on what should be done with the “white space” that separates the northern from the southern nodes, and which has nothing in it right now.
“We like the fact that it has nothing, because maybe we can come up with something. What this means is that this area in here can be very dynamic.”
Traffic is a major problem, said Lewis.
Valley Center Road is a major road for reaching the Indian casinos and can expect upwards of 57,000 trips per day eventually.
“Whatever the numbers is going to take four lanes and then some. We have a problem.”
The group proposes to add commercial in the middle that separates the two nodes. “That way we can bring the town together and connect the two nodes,” said Lewis.
If this happens, Valley Center Road would be expanded beyond the strip zoning that exists now.
The group also proposes putting in a lake of non-potable water 600 by 650 feet. This would provide storage for an water reclamation plant, and create an attractive community landmark. Their plan includes taking part of an increased capacity from the water reclamation plant being built to accommodate Woods Valley Road.
That is not something that the developers of Woods Valley Ranch are obliged to do. The County has already attached requirements to their project and cannot add new ones without their permission.
"We are going to have about 2,000 people within 15 minutes and 2,000 a little further off. We feel this will be a viable town and a walkable town,” said Lewis.
He added, “We think VC road is really critical to what’s going to happen here. We want to put in minimum amount of pavement, including 18 feet on either side for people and bikes.”
They want to plant a double row of trees on either side of the road and create berms that will hide the cars from view without hiding the stores.
The group also supports a planted median down the middle of VC Road.
“Landscaping is needed. Lots of it. To hide the cars so you don’t see them and put buffers between spaces and pieces.”
Chairman Larry Glavinic asked if the 50 property owners are willing to participate in the maintenance and landscaping of planted median. “That’s the pivotal question for me.”
“Absolutely,” said Flynn.
Jim Chagala, who is also representing the VCCPTO, said that one possibility is for the commercial owners to agree to form a County Service Area and tax themselves.
“We’re not totally oblivious to the fact that it’s going to cost a lot of money,” said Allen Olson, a Realtor in the Southern node. "Some of these things are going to be done by private property owners because if you look to the county it will never be done.”
Not everyone was enthusiastic about the plan.
A few northern node business people could be heard to grumble during the break: “It’ll never happen. They want to save the southern node by killing the northern node.”
After the break, Chagala pointed out the obvious: “This community is looking for something that’s not strip commercial. In order to do that the first proposal for GP2020 cannot stand. The commercial is so narrow that it will never support any neighborhood commercial. To us it’s very important to get some sort of support from this group.”
Rich Rudolf, secretary of the group, responded, “We are very enthusiastic about the proposed project and encourage the County to make as much of that project come out as part of the GP2020 project.”
If Rick Richards has learned anything in his long career with casinos and hotels, it’s customer service.
“Customer service is something that you have to live,” he says. “Before we do anything else we need to improve our customer service.”
Richards was named recently to be general manager of Valley View Casino, which is owned by the San Pasqual Band of Indians. He is in charge of day-to-day operations.
It’s no secret that the casino is in the midst of a transition. The tribe is attempting to end its relationship with First Nation Gaming, which was its partner in the creation of Valley View, and which was supposed to fund the second phase of the casino on tribal property overlooking Lake Wohlford.
That project has not happened yet, and, for the moment the tribe won’t talk about future funding for the casino or possible future partners, although it’s also no secret that the tribe would like to form a new partnership with a Las Vegas company called Siren Gaming Inc., which was started by the former operators of the Rio Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas and which built the Mirage, Treasure Island and New York, New York, among others.
“I’m not part of that,” says Richards with a friendly wave of his hand.
He was brought in to manage the Valley View, period.
What brought him here, he says, was the expanding possibilities for gaming in California, which has overtaken Atlantic City, and which is nipping at the heels of Nevada.
Richards has a resume in gaming that stretches back 21 years. He knows every aspect of the business, from the cages to dealing. “I’ve done everything,” he says. His family has been in the business for three generations.
Most recently Richards served as senior vice president and general manager for the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
He implemented specialized training to improve customer service levels throughout the casino and built a high-end marketing staff, which produced the highest levels of revenue in the history of the casino.
He has also worked for Caesar's Palace, Hilton Corp., Stations Casinos and Bally’s Hotel & Casino.
Richards views customer service this way: “Most people who come into a casino are going to lose money. So you need to create some excellent entertainment value for them so that, win or lose, they have a good time and the time just flies by. You want patrons to say, ‘The people are great. The service is nice.’
“People will remember a smiling face or fast service.” To achieve that goal, the casino and its employees must be proactive rather than reactive, he says.
The new GM describes himself as a “people person.”
Before he took the job, Richards visited the casino and experienced it from the viewpoint of a customer.
“People don’t like being said ‘no’ to. People like being said, ‘yes,’ to,” he observes. And even if you have to say no, you can still do all that you can do so that the customer leaves the encounter satisfied and happy.
“Most people have heard the term ‘customer service,’ but they don’t know exactly what it means.”
At the Hard Rock, Richards taught his people not just to “say hello,” but to react to the customers. To give them an introduction and to look them in the eye. Not to just perform an automatic function that is robotic and the same for everyone.
“You’ve got to know and see the person,” says Richards. “If a dealer is nice enough, they won’t care if they lost.”
These same principles will be applied at the casino’s buffet.
“We always need to look at the food and just because it tastes OK doesn’t mean it’s as good as it can be. The taste buds should jump!”
They are also looking at a “rotating” buffet that cycles every five weeks. This is also in response to customers who want a little more variety.
Will anyone notice these changes/
“I think that if someone came in the casino a month ago and then came in today, they’d notice the changes,” says Richards.
Some more obvious planned changes include raising the number of slot machines from 780 to 900 and adding two more table games, to bring the total up to 11.
Customers have told them that they want more progressive slot machines where they can win bigger jackpots and jackpots that aren’t always the same. Richards is taking those suggestions to heart.
Richards is also looking at adding more of a variety of machines.
“I’m from Las Vegas, but what brought me here was this area. It has great potential. We can do some good things here and be very successful in a short time.”
Sections from one of the world’s earliest airplanes -- one that apparently was flown on an old airfield in Valley Center -- have been found in storage on Palomar Mountain. The items are on their way to Valley Center’s new history museum.
The vintage airplane parts, known in aviation parlance as a spar and spreaders, comprise portions of a wing from one of four flying craft built and tested between 1908 and 1917 by aviation pioneer Donald H. Gordon. His initial flight was made in the infant days of aeronautics, within six years of the Wright Brothers’ first flight.
By 1920, Gordon began experimenting in Valley Center on a little-known flying field that remains intact in its original undeveloped state on Cool Valley Road. Only a primitive hangar that once stood on the site is gone.
Discovery of the historic pieces was hailed as “an incredible find” by local historian Bob Lerner who began searching seven years ago for data and artifacts linked to Gordon.
The three airplane sections were acquired in 1978 by Brad Bailey, proprietor of the historic Bailey’s Palomar Resort. At the time, Bailey was a technician at Palomar Observatory. An aviation enthusiast, Bailey was given the items by Taras Kiceniuk, superintendent of the observatory. Kiceniuk, whose avocation was also aviation, had acquired the airplane sections from Gordon before the inventor died in 1968 at his home on Palomar Mountain.
A card attached to one of the sections reads: “This airplane belonged to Donald Gordon of Palomar Mountain, first aviator to fly west of the Mississippi.”
Lerner said Bailey has agreed to donate the old airplane sections to the new Valley Center History Museum where they will be on permanent display along with photos and supplemental data on Gordon’s flights in Valley Center. The museum, expected to open early next year, is under construction on Cole Grade Road adjoining the new Valley Center Branch Library.
Gordon, who grew up in El Cajon Valley, built and flew a glider and three powered planes on the family’s 160-acre ranch. Although he was nearly deaf by 1917, he nonetheless resumed flying after World War I at the Valley Center site.
A 1946 U.S. Geological Survey map in the archives of the library identifies Gordon’s pioneer airstrip near the corner of Cole Grade and Cool Valley roads. A visit to the field was included last April during a local history tour sponsored by the VC History Museum.
Despite his early flights, Gordon had remained an almost forgotten figure in aviation until 1964 when he was honored by the San Diego AeroSpace Museum as “a real pioneer inventor, builder and flier of aircraft.” A tribute paid to him at the time declared: “San Diego County has a resident who was a very interesting early experimenter in aviation, of whom very little has ever been heard, and unlike many experimenters of his time, all his planes flew.”
Historians say that Gordon did not become famous because he refused to hold public demonstrations as was common among most early-day fliers. He moved permanently to Palomar Mountain about 1944 and remained active on local conservation projects and clearing fire trails until his death in 1968 at age 85.
Aviation buffs will want to know that the sections from Gordon’s early plane include a spar, the main long member of the wing of an airplane that carries the ribs and spreaders, the so-called “sticks” that separate the wings of a biplane.
More Valley Center residents and other generous donors have stepped up to make donations both modest and large to help build a performing arts center at Valley Center High School.
The latest donors are:
Mark Thompson, Valley Center, $25.
McCuskey Group, Inc., Escondido, $100.
Harry Weinberg, Escondido, $50.
Major Market, Fallbrook, $100.
Ivan & Rita Hofman, Pauma Valley, $200.
Fredrick T. Wollman, Escondido, $250.
Dale & Phyllis Waters, Valley Center, $25.
Per & Jennifer Stridsberg, Valley Center, $300.
Catherine R. Hjort, Escondido, $10.
Keith Davis & Tana Telleen, Valley Center, $300.
Ronald & Pamela Steele, Las Vegas, $20.
G. Kendall and Nancy Baldry, Valley Center, $100.
By DAVID ROSS
Trees are dying all over the Backcountry. The ones that aren’t are shutting down to conserve water.
Chris “The Woodcutter” Marsalek, whose business is trees, and who spends most of his time in the forests between Julian, Lake Henshaw and Palomar Mountain, observes: “The last month or so I have seen more trees just coming apart and falling over in the forest. Perhaps the roots are rotting because there is no water, or perhaps something is attacking the roots.”
When a normally healthy tree is stressed out from a lack of water, it becomes vulnerable to fungi and insects.
The most vulnerable are Ponderosa, Jeffrey pines, white fir, oaks, incense cedar and especially the Coulter Pine, which is extant in Cuyamaca and Palomar Mountain and makes up most of the forest in Julian. The pinion pines are the most resistant.
“We are living in rare conditions right now,” says Rich Minnich, a professor in the Dept. of Earth Sciences, UC Riverside. “Trees are being put to the ultimate test surviving with very limited water. A lot of them aren’t making it.”
Marsalek, who knows from personal experience because he’s been called in to cut dead trees, notes: “Julian is losing a huge percentage of all of their pine trees. We had the same thing happen on Palomar Mountain in 1985. Palomar lost a large percentage of its pines, so there’s not so many of those dying there. Palomar is losing many more white firs because there are so many more of them.”
When it Began
Marsalek remembers vividly when he noticed that the trees in the Backcountry were in trouble.
Two years ago he was crossing the west fork of the San Luis Rey River, called the Little Rincon, at a ranch at the base of Palomar Mountain near Barker Valley.
“The river constantly flows across the road until July. Last year the water stopped and pools remained on the first of June. This year the water stopped near the end of March.”
Last year in late September and October, he saw that Englemann Oaks on hillsides between Palomar Mountain and Valley Center had lost all their leaves.
This year he saw the same phenomenon, which, in the case of the Englemann, even though it is deciduous, is the tree shutting down to conserve water—This time it occurred in early June.
Minnich agrees. “The Englemann Oak is dropping its leaves in the wrong season. Normally it drops its leaves in the winter. I’ve never seen anything like this. It often doesn’t shed its leaves completely but it is now.
“If you look at the fields. There is no grass,” says Marsalek. “It never came up. Creatures are having a hard time finding food and that’s now when the meadows should be green. Look around the bottom of Lake Henshaw. It’s down to dirt. There is no grass. The chaparall has no water and is drying out. God help us if we have a fire.
“If you look at the trees there is very little new growth and there won’t be any acorns this year. All because the trees haven’t gone through their normal cycle,” says Marsalek.
“The Peninsula Ranges (which includes Palomar Mountain and Julian) are in a severe drought,” says Laura Merrill, with forest health protection, U.S. Forest Service. “It’s affecting the whole region, but seems to be much more severe in the peninsula.”
Vulnerable to Change
Oak trees are very susceptible to changes in their environment.
“The main thing killing the oaks right now is dramatic change,” says Merrill. “Old oaks can’t take that change, but young ones can. The old oaks, regardless of their environment, that’s what they are used to. If you subtract too much water or if the inversion layer changes, any major change in their habitat adversely affects them.”
“If you take oaks that you think in summer could use a whole lot of water and you start watering them in summer, you are likely to spread a root borne fungus that will kill the tree,” observes Marsalek.
Trees are meant to be dry in the summer and live through it. Trouble is they have gotten no water this year.
Drought is a normal part of the cycles of nature, but Mankind has tampered with that through fire suppression, practiced in this region since the early 1900s.
Normally, fires burn underbrush, killing younger trees, but sparing larger, older trees.
When fires are suppressed, young and old trees compete for the same resources.
“Pine forests around Cuyamaca used to be very open and parklike, with few trees and open stands, and they were mature. Fires went through them two or three times per century,” says Minnich. “Today’s forests are too dense. More trees are competing for the same water resources.
“One thing the drought will do is thin out some of the forests, but unfortunately it’s the big old guys that are dying,” he says.
Minnich has studied forests in Baja, where fires are not managed. They don’t show the same effects of drought, because they are more open and parklike.
Paradoxically, trees that grow near desserts probably won’t be as affected as trees that grow in areas, like Palomar Mountain, that normally get lots of rain.
“The die back is going to be really strong in a place like that,” Minnich says.
How many trees are dying in the Backcountry?
Minnich doesn’t know. but he’d like to get funding to do a study by flying over the trees to count the dead ones.
“The oaks haven’t even bothered to grow this year,” he says. “I have never seen this before, except during the drought of 1960-61, when I was a boy.”
If he is funded, Minnich hopes to have answers in a couple of months.
“The mortality episodes we’re in now will become even more intense in coming months By September we’ll know.”
The Worms March In
Lack of water weakens the trees. The worms, beetles and fungi finish them off.
“Trees can die from the effects of drought and pests can take advantage,” says Merrill. “Vigorously growing trees with plenty of water are much more stress resistant.
“In portions of those mountains there’s a lot of mortality from bark beetles.
“I’ve seen live oaks dying from what appears to be mostly drought stress, and we suspect from Shoestring Root Rot. Which doesn’t attack until they are drought stressed.”
Marsalek describes the condition: “Old trees are dying because there is a beetle that is species specific eating the cambium (transportation system for nutrients and water). If you take the cambium layer and girdle the tree the tree will die.
“What is going on with the white firs is that these trees drink a lot of water, as much as 300 gallons a day. A well fed tree is the swelling from the water inside it. This is called turgor pressure. With high turgor pressure and a whole lot of water and sap from the base to the top, the omnipresent beetles that bore into the bark on top, get covered with sap and the tree survives. In a drought of this magnitude there is no water at the top. The insects sense this. They are now not covered in sap. They can get into the cambium and munch the cambium all the way down.”
If you see a dead white fir with the needles just turned brown or starting to, the beetles are already on their way to the next tree.
As the drought progresses and their habitat is made larger, more beetles will infect more trees, creating pockets of dead trees.
In the Laguna Mountains a fungus called Annosus Root Disease, attacks the roots. They aren’t available to pull water, and other roots become stressed. As a result the tree may die.
“Strange stuff is going on with oaks,” says Minnich. “A bud worm is defoliating many of them.”
Saving Your Trees
If you want your oaks to survive, don’t suddenly start watering them.
“Watering them in summer, especially with heat and summer, is kind of change that would kill them,” says Marsalek.
Merrill, agrees. “Native trees are not adapted for summer water. It may be beneficial to give them deep watering during fall, winter and spring months, but not during summer.”
If you water the base of a large oak trees, it becomes its normal habitat to have its roots in the water and it will do fine. But if all of a sudden you change the way the tree is watered, it may die.
Don’t water near the trunk. Water around the drip line.
Similarly, disturbing an oaks roots or compacting soil around them, may cause them to die.
“Oaks like to have succeeding generations of leafs decaying into mulch, which holds the moisture around them” says Marsalek. “The life of those trees comes from the area under the canopy. If you do anything to greatly disturb it, like changing the grade, or putting a road next to it, it may take 15 year to die but it will most certainly be affected.”
Nature’s Way
Ultimately, there is little that people can do to prevent from what is going to happen, from happening, says Marsalek.
“Let nature take its course. Mother Nature has been doing this forever. What is going to stop the trees from dying is a lot of rain or a lot of fire.
“What ends up happening if there were no people, there would be a huge stress out. Lightning would strike and it would burn out. Chaparall would grow and shade young trees. Chaparall would die and the trees would go on their merry way. We’ve gotten in the way of the cycle. We’ve taken upon ourselves the responsibility of doing what Mother Nature has her own ways of doing. A fire, although unaesthetic, hurts Man more than it hurts the forest.
“In 1985 everybody looked at me and said ‘It’s horrible, all of the pines are dead. I spent the next bunch of years cutting them down. If you look at the forest now, it looks great.”
* * *
Readers interested in learning more about caring for their oak trees can find a wealth of information at: www.californiaoaks.org
The Valley Roadrunner
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