For the first time in many years the Western Days Parade is in the hands of completely new people.
The new chairman is Sandra Rockefeller-Farmer, who told The Roadrunner, “Our main goal this year is to have the parade run from 10 a.m. - noon, for real.”
There is a need to keep the parade within the two hour limit because of the growing problem of backed-up traffic caused by the annual event, she said.
The new chairman also wants to add some new elements to the parade, such as having clowns along the parade route making animals out of balloons, and maybe some other circus type people participating.
Another change: “We are inviting bands from other areas, such as Escondido, San Marcos, Vista, Poway, Rancho Bernardo and Fallbrook. Most parades do have more than one band.”
Mrs. Rockefeller-Farmer said she is only planning to be parade chairman for one year. “I am looking for a co-chairman that would be willing to run the parade next year. I’m not going to make this a career,” she says.
She got involved when she heard that no one had stepped forward to fill the shoes long filled by Fran DeWilde, who chaired the parade off and on for close to two decades.
“No one was stopping forward to do the parade so I said I would do it this year and help the next person.”
She adds, “Fran was there for many years and it’s a hard act to follow.”
Right now Mrs. Rockefeller-Farmer has six volunteers. “We need many, many more than that. We need someone to be in charge of staging areas, someone to be in charge of all the volunteers, most of all we need a co-chairman,” she says.
All of the volunteers that she has so far, except one, are members of the area Soroptimist Club.
She expects that dynamic to change very soon. “We’ve been spending the first few weeks organizing. Now we’ll be contacting organizations to get them involved.”
The next two meetings of the parade committee are as follows:
March 3, 6 p.m. at Coldwell Banker.
April 7, 6 p.m at Coldwell Banker.
“We are working very closely with the Western Days and Rodeo Committee to put together a calendar so everyone knows what the other one is doing,” says the chairman, who, in the past, has organized golf tournaments, charitable auctions and telethons.
If you are interested in volunteering for the parade, call 638-0311 or email Mrs. Rockefeller-Farmer at sar42840@aol.com
Eight local young ladies will be competing for the Miss Valley Center crown on Saturday, March 1.
The theme of this year’s pageant is ‘Surfin’USA’ and it will be held at the Valley Center Middle School.
Not only will these young ladies vie for the honor of being Miss Valley Center, they will also have the opportunity to win some substantial scholarship money for their education.
Miss Valley Center serves as an ambassador of the community while attending events throughout San Diego County including her participation in the Fairest of the Fair/Miss San Diego County Pageant that will be held in May at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
Lindsey Cannon, Miss Valley Center 2002, considers her reign to be a great experience that has helped her meet and interact with people in our own community, as well as other San Diegans, and even some celebrities.
“The purpose is to help young women make the change from being, say, a girl in high school to a young woman responsible to make her own decisions, and do so like a lady, with poise, grace and a knockout smile! Being Miss Valley Center in 1996 helped me to get through presentations in college, and the interview techniques helped me land a great job at Merrill Lynch,” commented Dianna Greene who was Miss Valley Center 1996 and co-founded the Valley Center Pageant Assn. with her best friend and mother, Karen Greene.
“We want every dollar to pass through the association and back to the contestants in the form of scholarships and awards for their efforts,” explained Karen Greene when asked why the VC Pageant Assn. was formed.
Each of the eight contestants has been busy preparing for the March 1 Scholarship pageant, practicing the opening dance number, speeches, interview techniques and getting their dazzling evening gowns.
Here is a preview of the contestants:
Contestant #1: LaVona Boyer is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC for eight years. She is the daughter of Arlene Kowalow and Dennis Boyer. She works at Pepperoni’s & Snappy’s. Her ambition is to become a teacher here in Valley Center.
Contestant #2: Tabitha Miller is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC for five years. She is the daughter of Laurie Miller. She used to work at Bates Nut Farm. She has plans to become a delivery room nurse.
Contestant #3: Heather Gillum is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC for ten years. She is the daughter of Jerry & Sandy Gillum and Donna & Rick McCall. She works as a nanny for three children. She hopes to make a difference in children’s lives as a teacher.
Contestant #4: Melinda Lasley is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC for seven years. She is the daughter of Keri & Henry Salmon and Ken & Chris Lasley. She plans to go to school to become a diesel mechanic and auto shop teacher.
Contestant #5: Jesse Oswald is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC for ten years with her grandmother Carole Fugate. She plans to attend Central Christian College of the Bible to become a missionary.
Contestant #6: Marlene Zacharia is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC for five years. She is the daughter of Zak & Claudette Zacharia. She works for BuilderDepot.com. She plans to teach as she puts herself through law school.
Contestant #7: Taryn Knapp is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC for two and a half years. She is the daughter of Terry Knapp and Elizabeth Schumann. She plans to become an Exotic Animal Trainer & Maintainer (EATM).
Contestant #8: Monique Lawson is 17 years old, a Senior at VCHS and has lived in VC her whole life. She is the daughter of David & Jeanna Lawson. She hopes to join the Disney Studios as an animator.
Tickets for the pageant can be purchased from the contestants, by calling the Pageant Director, Karen Greene @ 749-1863 or Co-Director, Dianna Greene @ 740-1020. The tickets are $10 pre-sale and $15 at the door the night of the event. The doors to the Valley Center Middle School will open at 6:30 p.m. for early seating and the curtains will open at 7 p.m. Any individuals or businesses interested in supporting the pageant program may contact the Pageant Director.
The Valley Center Pageant Assn. and the Valley Center Chamber of Commerce sponsor the scholarship pageant.
By DAVID ROSS
The word that the nominations of Will Rogers and Kris Preston would never be accepted came, as it were, from the supervisor’s mouth. Literally. From the dentist’s chair.
What put the kibosh on Preston’s and Rogers’s name being resubmitted for the VC Planning Group to Supervisor Bill Horn was a statement by Horn’s dentist, Ron Adair, also a recently elected member of the planning group.
“I spoke with Bill personally. He will not support them. We are being foolish to resubmit them. It’s foolish for us if we want to be effective, ” Adair said at the Feb. 10 meeting.
The vote was 8-4 not to resubmit the names.
Planner Rich Rudolf argued the minority position that the group should hold Horn to the statements in his letter to the group that he would consider any nominations that the newly elected group made to him.
Eric Laventure, chairman of the planning group’s nominations committee, presented the committee’s report in which he and Rudolf voted to resubmit the names, with the third member, Sandy Smith, voting no.
Laventure and planner Lael Montgomery put forward the motion to resubmit the names.
Jim Yerdon told the group, “We’ve been this before on Don Seitz [a nomination to the I-15 Corridor Design Review Board that Horn did not approve of]. We went without representation because we kept resubmitting the name.”
Rudolf commented that “[Horn] did us the discourtesy of sitting on the names that we recommended for many, many months. It is not his choice. He does not have the power. The ordinance says that we nominate and it goes to the full board. He is fully capable of recommending to the full board not to appoint them. I have never heard of any supervisor doing that.”
Rudolf added, “I don’t know how we could get two people that are more uniquely qualified to be here than any of us. I would hope that they would apply again and I would hope that we would vote for them again.”
Rudolf praised Preston’s knowledge of biology.
“She brings us a unique training. We deal with biology and environmental stuff all the time and none of us have this kind of training. . . She has demonstrated over and over that she is not an environmental zealot. The Sierra Club has no presence in this room. There are no environmental zealots here.”
He added, “I would like to get us up to a full board before June so that we can get something accomplished.”
Rudolf said he believed that the planner group members are actually closer to agreement on GP2020 than they have been portrayed in The Roadrunner, which, he said, reduced all issues to black and white.
“The County thinks we are a bunch of zanies who can’t agree on anything. We need to work together and to quit suspecting each other and conjuring up nasty thoughts based on nothing at all. Kris Preston is an exemplar of that attitude and she would make a great representative.”
Planner Andy Washburn commented, “The realty is that Horn does have the power to stop that submission before it hits the Board of Supervisors. It would be foolish to resubmit the same names. What will happen is that Horn simply won’t do anything and we will be stymied.”
Planner Robert Hancock said it would be unfair to other candidates who might be interested in the positions to only reconsider Preston and Rogers.
Montgomery commented, “I’m in favor of Chris Preston. I’ve never been fortunate enough to work with someone who cared as much as she does. I don’t know why Supervisor Horn expects us to roll over. I don’t know why we would do that. He said in his letter that he was turning them down because of the election. I think we should take him at his word. We’re not children. She’s a wonderful human being and very well informed and has the academic credentials.”
Planner Mel Schuler commented, “I have no opposition to Kris being placed in the running but I am disappointed that the nominations committee has stepped forward with no other names. . . I firmly believe that Horn will not reappoint them. He had six months to do it and I don’t think he’s going to miraculously change his mind.”
“We took Mr. Horn’s letter exactly to the letter,” answered Laventure.
Planning Chairman Larry Glavinic noted that “this is a quandary that we have had before. There are many fine people in VC. I think let’s get some of the other wonderful people out here.”
Audience member Patsy Fritz commented that while Horn does not have an actual “veto” over candidates being presented to the board, “he has a pocket veto because the secretary of the board sends all nominations for his district to his office.”
She added that fighting Horn on this is like fighting a Mom who says to her children who oppose her: “ ‘Because it’s my house and I’m bigger than you . . .’ There isn’t anyone with the brains of a four year old who doesn’t know how this is going to play out.. . . The board will never see this nomination. . . .Horn has every right to do it and he will do it.”
Another resident commented, “I Horn was wise in his decision because they [Preston and Rogers) don’t represent the public as represented by the vote. Our community can’t afford to have any more special interests on the group, no matter how ‘qualified’ they may be. Kris Preston has a conflict of interest because she’s on the board of Hellhole Conservancy.”
Resident Keith Davis spoke for Rogers. “I’ve worked with Will Rogers . . .. He’s a great team member. You should go back and resend the letter. These are two great candidates.
Preston, speaking for herself, said she understood that there was a lot of division over the Hellhole Canyon issue. She explained that she has a bachelor’s in biology, with a specialty in endangered species. She is almost due to complete her doctorate.
“I have some knowledge about the Hellhole area that is not understood by the land owners. There have been a lot of hurdles for them and it has not all come from me. I’m a biologist and I know what’s coming in terms of biological regulations. I see a lot of people who are not knowledgeable about the Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan.”
Rudolf added, “Our job is not to read the tea leaves and try to read what the boss will say. Our job is to say these are the people we want.”
Rogers also spoke in favor of his own nomination.
“I’m a landscape architect and urban planner and I’ve worked for the city of San Diego for eight years. My interest in joining this group was my wife said ‘You should get involved in the community. The whole area is changing. They need your help. I’m here to help. If you guys don’t need my help, that’s fine. You’re coming across a lot of issues that a lot of you don’t understand.”
Rudolf noted that Horn has approved Rogers’s nomination to the I-15 Corridor Design Review Board.
“He might have a chance if we had the guts to reappoint him.”
Preston said, “I know I am somewhat controversial, but I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t vote for Will. There are so many issues that are so complex. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t vote for him. He hasn’t done anything controversial.”
Adair added, “Mr. Horn said he doesn’t believe they represent the majority of the community.”
“We’re not Horn clones. We’re independent votes,” argued Rudolf before the vote that went against him 8-4.
* * *
The planning group is now accepting applications for the two vacancies. The nominating committee hopes to have candidates names for the March meeting so that the candidates can speak before the group.
Work will begin this summer on a road traffic signal at Valley Center School Road & Cole Grade Road.
The signal is scheduled to be constructed between July and October 2003. The Board of Supervisors will consider approval of advertisement and a construction contract on June 11.
The County Dept. of Public Works informed VC Planning Group Chairman Larry Glavinic of the pending road work in a letter dated Feb. 7.
According to Doug Isbell, Deputy Director of DPW, the plans and specifications for the signal are being prepared after being put on a priority Sept. 18 by the Board of Supervisors. They took this action after a recommendation from the Traffic Advisory Committee.
According to Isbell, the signal will improve vehicle and pedestrian safety.
The action had been sought for several years by both the school district and the planning group.
Questions about the project can be directed to Steve Ron, project manager at 858-694-2567.
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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