Valley Center’s biggest and best event of the year is stampeding your way this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday, thousands of visitors and loyal Valleyites are expected to line Valley Center Road to watch the annual parade, which has over 120 entries.
Various announcers will be stationed along VC Road to provide a running commentary of the fun.
As always, a bright sunny day, with no clouds, but not too hot, has been ordered by the Chamber of Commerce.
Leading the parade will be Grand Marshal Robert Freeman and VC Citizen of the Year, Dan Thornton.
The parade will include the antics of the Al Bahr Shriners and their Tin Lizzies, local riding and walking units representing groups such as GOP Republican Women and the Dos Valles Garden Club, and numerous loud, patriotic fire engines.
The honorary mayor’s showdown is at 5 p.m. at VC Community Hall. Will the winner be Bear-ly Honest Kim Laventure of the Chamber, “reluctant” candidate Tom Williams of the Kiwanis, or Lori Heck, wrapping herself up in the flag as she represents Calvary Chapel, Valley Center?
The number of votes (i.e. money) they collected will be the deciding factor.
A Craving for Pancakes
First thing Saturday and Sunday, two different groups will satisfy your craving for pancakes.
Saturday Rotary will serve pancakes from 7-10 a.m. at Old Towne Center.
Sunday the VC Lions Club will serve pancakes at Bates Nut Farm from 8-11 a.m.
The Valley Center Stampede Rodeo scheduled is Saturday and Sunday nights.
Saturday the gates open at 2 p.m.,VIP dinner starts at 3 p.m and the performance starts at 4 p.m. The VIP dinner is $25 and includes a barbecue dinner. Various clubs will also be selling food.
From 2-4 p.m. both days you can come and get your pictures taken with the VC Floozies.
On Sunday the rodeo gates open at noon, the performance starts at 2 p.m. On both days Indian singer dancers will perform.
Rodeo tickets at the gates are $10 for adults, children 5 and under, free.
Family Fun Night
This year on Friday there’s Family Fun Night from 5-8 p.m. at the rodeo grounds. Entry fee is $1. Think of this as being like an old-fashioned country fair with tugs-of-war, horseshoes, stick horse races, egg tossing, relay races, rooster calling and dog and owner look-alike contests.
Live Entertainment
Live entertainment from the Shake Band, the Working Cowboy Band, Ranch Rockers and the Big River Band will keep your toes tapping all weekend. On Sunday there’s something new, an all-day Bluegrass Festival with the bands Les & Lou Ann Preston, the Full Deck and Virtual Strangers.
Sponsor for live entertainment is Valley View Casino.
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Be sure to visit your mailbox and pick up the complete guide to Western Days and the rodeo, produced by The Roadrunner. These guides will be also be handed out during the parade.
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The parade begins at 10 a.m. and runs along Valley Center Road, beginning at Cole Grade and ending at Old Road.
The parade lasts about two hours. Once the parade is over, it’s time to make your way to VC Community Center for all the festivities. There you’ll find booths and food vendors of all types and tastes.
Road Closures
From 9:30 a.m. till the end of the parade the following area is closed to traffic - Valley Center Road from Woods Valley Road (south); Lilac (west to Betsworth); Cole Grade Road (east) & then to Fruitvale (north). All streets, private roads and driveways along the parade route are also closed.
Detours
Suggested detours are:
Northbound - Woods Valley east (right) from Valley Center Road to Lake Wohlford Road. Then north (left) on Lake Wohlford to Valley Center Road. West (left) on Valley Center Road to Mactan Road. Mactan north (right) to Fruitvale Road. Fruitvale Road west (left) to Cole Grade Road, north (right) on Cole Grade which will connect with the 76 in Pauma Valley.
Southbound - Cole Grade Road to Fruitvale Road, east (left) on Fruitvale to Mactan. Mactan south (right) to Valley Center Road. Valley Center Road east (left) to Lake Wohlford Road. Lake Wohlford Road south (right) to Woods Valley Road. Woods Valley Road (right) to Valley Center Road, or continue down Lake Wohlford Road, past the Lake to intersection of Valley Center Road at the bottom of the grade.
By DAVID ROSS
If you’ve seen the big gash in the earth that appeared next to Oak Realty & Financial, you’ve seen the beginnings of Valley View Ranch, a $46 million development.
If you’ve heard the road work beginning at 7 a.m. along Mirar De Valle, you also aware of the development’s beginning stages.
The reorientation of Mirar De Valle is the most visible and audible result so far of a planned 115 lot development on 500 acres, which will begin its first phase of construction in June.
Mirar De Valle is being improved to a 40 foot width and the “vertical curves” (bumps) are being ironed out. A left turn pocket from Valley Center Road to Mirar De Valle is also being added.
The developer will also install 1.5 miles of 12 inch water main which it will present to the VC Municipal Water District.
The $1 million in improvements will be finished by the Fourth of July, if the developer has his way.
Valley View Ranch has no connection to the casino of the same name. It’s just the English form of Mirar de Valle.
Jim McMenamin, owner of Tri-mark Pacific Homes L.P. dropped by the office recently to talk about his development.
For those who are into recent history, the property has also been known as the Retlaw orchard, and was formerly owned by the Disney family. A development at this location has been hanging fire for many years.
The land was once a mix of citrus and avocado orchards. The owners couldn’t afford the water and turned it off, so many of the trees are dead. The dead trees will be removed.
Retlaw sold to a group called Valley Center Investments, based in Portland, Oregon. Under this company a tentative parcel map was approved in 2000. Tri-Mark bought the land last September.
The development will proceed in two phases. Phase 1 will be 43 lots, and will begin in June. Phase II, which will build the rest, should begin next next year, depending on how well houses are selling.
Valley View Ranch will be a gated community with CC&Rs (covenants, codes and restrictions) and a home owners association. The HOA will maintain the entry and the street system inside.
Much of the site remains untouched. All of the land will be owned in individual ownerships and there is some dedicated open space and biological open space easements.
Lot prices have not been finalized yet, said McMenamin, but will be by June. An information trailer should be at the site at that same time. Model homes will be under way within the next 30 days. First home construction will begin June 30.
Lots are minimum two acres in size and pads are a minimum 16,000 but many are over 20,000. All will be on septic systems.
There are four floor plans.
• One story, 3,349 sq. ft four bedroom with a fifth bedroom option.
• One story , 3,698 sq. ft, 4-5 bedrooms.
• Two story, 4,213 sq feet. five bedroom with a sixth bedroom option.
• Two story, 4,626 sq. ft, 5-6 bedrooms.
Each floor plan has three elevations: ranch style, Spanish and Provence style.
Additional options include either detached garage units or cassitas (like a granny flat).
McMenamin, who is the developer and builder of Valley View Ranch, sees his market as “families from the local area and elsewhere from North County, who are looking for a lifestyle in Valley Center.”
Houses will look across Valley Center Road to Woods Valley Ranch golf course and Palomar Mountain. The country views, some of them 360 degrees, will take in native vegetation, oaks, cacti and other vegetation.
From Poway, McMenamin was the project manager for Bridlewood an estate lot subdivision near Lake Poway.
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For information on the development prior to the opening of a sales office, call McMenamin at 781-5470.
Exotic Newcastle Disease may be on the wane, according to officials with the state and federal task force that is working to eradicate the deadly poultry plague.
The first of several infected VC chicken ranches to do so, the Fluegge Egg Ranch, received a clean bill of health last week.
According to Adrian Woodfork, spokesman for the Exotic Newcastle Disease Task Force based in Garden Grove, August Fluegge, owner of the ranch, must sign a compliance agreement in which he agrees to have his birds tested ever week once he restocks his ranch in September.
When a chicken ranch is discovered to have infected birds, the birds must first be killed and disposed of. Next the operation is cleaned and disinfected by members of the task force, which is composed of many different state and federal agencies, including the California Dept. of Food & Agriculture, the California Highway Patrol, U.S. Dept. of Forestry and others.
Once an egg ranch is free and clear of the disease for 30 days, the owner is asked to sign a compliance agreement if he wants to restock.
Other VC egg ranches that have been infected in recent months are the Foster Ranch on Cole Road, Armstrong Egg Ranch No. 5 on Cole Grade Road and Armstrong Egg Ranch No. 8 on Lilac Road.
The task force’s work appears to be slowly taking the upper hand, Woodfork told The Roadrunner this week.
“We feel that the eradication of Newcastle disease is definitely succeeding based on the fact that there are fewer and fewer cases week by week showing up,” he said. “We’re hoping that by the end of the year our goal will be completed.”
The disease so far has been confined to chickens and other assorted poultry and a few pet birds, ducks and pigeons.
Rattites, such as emus and ostriches, appear not to have been affected, although technically all birds can catch the disease.
The effects of the disease have also been felt on 13 backyard chicken operations in Valley Center, where owners had to euthanize the birds and conduct the same sort of clean up as larger, commercial operations.
Everyone within a one kilometer (about .621 mile) radius of any infected chicken ranch has been checked by the inspectors. If they have chickens or poultry they are contacted by a diagnostic team.
So far the monetary damages to Southern California from the disease is $97.2 million and $105.2 million in the United States.
That includes the cost of paying 1027 members of the task force and compensating poultry owners for their birds.
Owners are paid between $5 for chickens up to $18.50 for birds such as a double yellow headed parrot.
For several weeks some of the larger landowners on Palomar Mountain have hired loggers to clear out dead or dying trees, caused by last year’s drought.
Now the smaller landowners and residents are being asked to help to keep the Mountain from being turned into an inferno.
Recently on a Saturday night over 100 residents of the Mountain gathered in the capacious bay of the volunteer fire department to hear Fire Chief Carl Bauer say, “We do have a problem on Palomar Mountain!”
In spite of the near miraculous rain and snow of last winter and this spring, five years of drought have had their effect. Thousands of trees have died in the forest.
It’s a paradox: to save most trees, you have to cut down many others.
Too many trees will mean that the largest are being robbed of water by the smallest.
Nature has a way of taking care of this: fire. But when Man prevents nature from managing its forests, disaster can result.
Last year was the driest year in recorded history in San Diego County. Scientists say the last time anything like this occurred was in 1640.
That’s why trees are dying, not because of the bark beetle. Trees that are stressed from too little water become victim to bark beetles.
Trees most affected are white fir and incense cedar.
Scary Meeting
The problem all over the county is too many dead trees on 180,000 acres of forest.
At Saturday’s meeting Chief Bauer introduced Rick Hawkins of the U.S. Forestry Service Chief of Fire and Aviation Management at the Cleveland National Forest.
Residents of the Mountain are within Hawkins’s jurisdiction. If a house catches on fire on the Mountain, U.S. Forestry units, working with the volunteer fire company, will try to save it.
Hawkins assured residents that he won’t put men and women in danger to save a house where an owner hasn’t done enough to clear the brush and dead trees.
Hawkins spoke of the change of philosophy that has taken hold in the U.S. Forestry Service, that 100 years of forest management have been wrong-headed.
A century ago forests were thinner. People on horseback used to be able to easily ride through the forest.
Trees rarely lived to be 30 years old because they would be wiped out in small fires. Now thousands of young trees compete with larger, older trees.
“You don’t get by one hundred years of mismanagement in a day, or a year,” said Hawkins. “We shouldn’t have been putting out all of those fires, but you can’t go back to the past.”
In Baja California, where forests are not managed, the average number of trees per acre is 40. Forests in this county often have three times that amount.
To manage fire the number of trees per acre needs to be brought down to 80, said Hawkins.
Palomar Mountain is in danger, but it is by no means the worst case. “Half of our trees are alive,” said Hawkins. “But we should be worried.”
To show how bad the worst case is, Hawkins showed a film of the San Bernardino Mountains, where communities, such as Idlywild and Big Bear are faced with losing all of their trees.
Because many homes are now in or near forests, the number of fires that affect homes in the U.S. has accelerated in the last 50 years.
From 1955-79 there were 2,408 such fires. For 1980-93 the number was 7,698. For 1990-99 the number was 6,309. In Harmony Grove in 1996, 122 homes and 6,000 acres burned in less than eight hours.
Factors at work in communities where forest fires have burned many homes are these: flammable roofs, narrow roads, inadequate water, inadequate access in and out and inadequate clearing between vegetation and homes, the last considered to be the most vital.
“What does Palomar Mountain consist of?” asked Bauer and answered himself: “Combustible structures next to combustible forest.” Those other factors also apply in spades.
Bauer added, “In some sense we’re blessed because it’s not too late for us . . . We have time to do something but we need to move now.”
Kevin O’ Leary, who commands the California Dept. of Forestry & Fire Protection for the area that includes Palomar Mountain said, “What we need to do is to give firefighters a chance to save your structure.”
In coming days O’Leary, Bauer and Hawkins will be working with local residents on structure protection plans and an evacuation plan in case of a fire.
Most likely Palomar Observatory will be where people will be advised to go in an emergency. Other areas will also be identified.
“I understand that it’s a little unnerving to hear talk like this, but the time to do it is before a fire occurs,” said Bauer.
“What we are asking from you (the audience) is to help solve the problem and the way to do that is to reduce the fuel. We are asking you to look at your homes and make them fire safe.”
That means creating a 100 foot area around your house from flammable brush and dead trees.
“If you make this effort I’ll show up,” said Hawkins. “If you don’t I’ll block the road with my truck and say to the firefighters, ‘Don’t go in there or you are a dead man.’ ”
Clearing needs to be done by July of this year, when the worst of the fire season will be at hand.
Red Ribbon Week
Adding to passion at the fire house meeting were the many residents who were upset and fearful because that week San Diego Gas & Electric employees had gone through the community and tagged numerous large trees with red ribbons, without telling anyone why they were doing it.
Many angry people at the meeting tied this tagging of trees to the logging operations that have begun and erroneously concluded that SDG&E wants to harvest the forest.
Several claimed that healthy trees were being tagged. “They don’t seem to know the difference between a dead tree and a live one,” said one.
One man asked why anyone but a lumber company would do such a thing.
SDG&E representatives Bruce Taylor and Don Acow assured residents that they were marking trees that may pose a hazard to the power company’s lines. Residents will be asked to allow those trees to be cut down, although no one will be forced to.
To find out more, call Bruce Taylor at 858-6544-8605.
Logging Operations
Someone does want to do some harvesting of dead or dying trees: longtime resident Nick Ricchuiti of Palomar Timber Company.
Ricchuiti, who has lived on the Mountain since 1960, has partnered with a Marysville company, Sierra Cedar Products, and is offering this service to residents who need to get rid of dead trees.
In some cases the company will be able to “harvest” the trees economically, at no cost to the homeowner, in return for being able to process the wood.
In some cases homeowners will be able to make a little money from the trees being harvested.
To find out more information, call Ricchiuti at 760-604-3612.
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
Copyright © 2002, Palomar Community Newspapers, dba Valley Roadrunner. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Valley Roadrunner.