Work will begin this summer on the long-awaited Valley Center High School performing arts theater, Supt. Karen Jobe announced Thursday in an update on all of the district’s new facilities.
The Pauma-Valley Center Unified School District board then approved the timeline for the facilities projects.
The first phase will include site work for the theater.
Other facilities projects planned for the summer of 2004 include:
• Pauma School, office and parent drop off traffic lane, at a cost of $135,000.
• VCHS— Temporary parking lot (JV baseball/soccer) at a cost of $475,000.
• Six tennis courts and handball courts, at a cost of $392,000.
• VCHS— Move Thompson house to 5 acres across the street from the high school and put it on the market.
The Thompson house is a former residence on the land that was purchased for the high school. The district has never been able to find a use for the house, but now may be able to make some money off it.
During the 2004-2205 school year, the baseball fields will be moved to the former location of the Thompson house.
As money and time allow, other projects are being planned, including a bus and overflow parking lane at Lilac Elementary School, at a cost of $73,000; replacing rented bleachers at VCHS; install artificial turf at the VCHS football/soccer field; move ramps for track at VCHS; Pool for VCHS at a cost of $750,000 and two additional tennis courts at a cost of $60,000.
Requests for the high school that have not yet been assigned priorities include:
• Aluminum bench seating on concrete stadium seating levels
• Permanent bathrooms—up level at stadium
• Larger snack bar—upper level at the stadium
• Combination storage, shed, snack bar, bathrooms on field level
• Expanded press box, with phone line
The nightmares about fire kept waking Valley Center artist Richard Bacon, and so he decided to turn his bad dreams into dramatic, haunting paintings.
The paintings that fire inspired are part of an exhibit entitled “Passing Through Fire, Impressions of Paradise Firestorm 2003” which will run until March 2 at the Grand Galleria in Escondido.
An artist’s reception will be held Saturday, Feb. 21, 3-6 p.m. at the gallery.
Bacon, who endured the harrowing experience of losing most of his art in October’s Paradise fire, moved here in 2000 with his wife, Patricia, lives on property on Cool Water Ranch Road, off Woods Valley Road.
This area of town was in the path of the fire’s fury the first few days.
The Bacons lost everything but the house, including the avocado grove, corrals, and, most devastating, their artist’s studio. Both lost works of art and notes.
“They were images that have been burned into my memory and which have been causing me nightmares,” Bacon told The Roadrunner.
The paintings started out as therapy during those long nights as Bacon worked through his emotions.
The show came about when Galleria director Brian Tucker heard Bacon talking about his paintings and asked him to put together an exhibit, almost immediately.
The 20 paintings are in a mixed media with a base of water color, and layers built on using wax, salt, acrylic and pastels.
Bacon paints in an abstract impressionist style that leaves the paintings open to the interpretation of the viewer.
Besides the Galleria, you can see Bacon’s non-fire related works at the San Diego Art Institute at Balboa Park, the San Diego Watercolor Society in Little Italy, and the Escondido Municipal Gallery.
From Syracuse, New York, originally, Bacon has a BA in fine arts from Rhode Island School of Design. He is applying for a master’s in fine arts at UCSD.
By DAVID ROSS
Part III of a series
For its supporters, the Rural Lands Initiative, Prop. A, which would cut the density in 694,000 acres in unincorporated San Diego County, is the last chance to prevent the Backcountry from being despoiled.
According to the Prop. A website:
“The Rural Lands Initiative will provide San Diego County citizens with a voice in protecting the county's most beautiful natural areas from being prematurely or unnecessarily developed. By limiting urban development in the rural areas of eastern and northern San Diego County to existing country towns, this initiative will:
• Protect and improve drinking water quality
• Prevent pollution of coastal wetlands, beaches, and bays
• Protect forest areas
• Encourage transit-friendly development to help revitalize neighborhoods within existing urban boundaries and give San Diego voters more control over development decisions.”
Many supporters of the initiative argue that most of the land affected by Prop. A is dependent on groundwater tables that have been sinking steadily in recent years.
Others, such as James Goldborough, writing in the San Diego Union Tribune, suggests that limiting lot sizes could help prevent future catastrophic firestorms.
“In San Diego, the Rural Lands Initiative, which will be on the March ballot, would ban sprawl in remote county areas, helping to preserve the streams, lakes and forests – and minimize future human fire disasters – by establishing minimum lot size,” he wrote.
San Diego Mayoral candidate Peter Q. Davis issued this statement in support of Prop. A:
“Protecting our citizens and quality of life from choking traffic and urban sprawl is another instance in which the politicians have failed the people,” Davis said. “This initiative is necessary because the political establishment has made a mess of the planning process.”
He added, “My property will have restrictions placed on it as a result of RLI. But we must have good planning to protect our quality of life for ourselves and our children.”
The California Oak Foundation , one of many environmental groups such as the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club supporting Prop. A, writes this about the proposition: “COF strongly supports the Rural Lands Initiative, viewing it as the only means to protect local oak woodlands from the majority of San Diego County officials and development interests.”
In addition to getting a boost from the San Diego City Council and several city mayors, Prop. A has the support of local labor.
The San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, endorsed it last fall, making it clear that it saw the proposition as a way to fight the decay of the inner city.
“If we keep expanding outward faster than population growth, our cities will never get the resources we need to invest in decaying infrastructure in our urban neighborhoods, or to meet our families' needs for affordable housing.” said Jerry Butkiewicz, Secretary-Treasurer of the Labor Council.
“We believe the Rural Lands Initiative is good because it will deflect infrastructure investment back to the center of the region. We don't see any other way the City of San Diego can overcome its current $2 billion infrastructure deficit.”
Allen Shur, of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 569, said he supported Prop. A because development in the hinterlands doesn’t use union labor as often s construction in the cities.
“Sprawl development usually uses less skilled workers and doesn't pay livable wages and benefits. Development in cities usually hires higher skilled workers with livable wages and health benefits for families,” he said.
There are also those who are voting for Prop. A, not because they necessarily like its provisions, but because they like less what General Plan 2020 will do to backcountry densities.
One factor that Prop. A supporters point to is to point at people who are funding opposition ads and to challenge their motives.
Don Bauder in a recent column for the San Diego Reader pointed to the opposition’s bankrollers: “Last year, about $75,000 of the $119,000 raised to beat the measure in the upcoming March 2 election came from realty interests,” he wrote.
“Genesee Properties, which is working to subdivide Julian's Hoskings Ranch, gave $25,000; Gildred Building Co., $5000; Valley View Partnership, $5000; San Diego Board of Realtors, $15,000; Atomic Investments, $15,000; and Canta Rana Ranch Land Co., $10,000.”
Not all environmental activists support Prop. A, although many of them feel that they can’t publically criticize it because of an unwritten rule that says that greens don’t attack other greens.
“It’s not exactly my favorite topic,” one told us off the record. “But I’m going to hold my nose and vote for it.”
To Be Continued.
The Valley Center Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors are in the planning stages for the Honorary Mayor’s Race 2004.
The race which is part of the annual Western Days celebration will begin March 20, which is 60 days before the Mayor is announced.
VC organizations are invited to enter a candidate this year. “This is a good time of year to have some fund-raisers and give club members a chance to be Honorary Mayor for 2004,” says Donna Jorgensen, Chairman of the contest.
If you have any questions or concerns please call her at 749-1112 days or 749-1266 evenings, or call any member of the Ambassadors Club.
MAYOR’S RACE RULES
Candidate must be 18 years of age or older, a resident of Valley Center and be sponsored in writing, either through the newspaper or in a letter to the Valley Center Chamber of Commerce, by a Valley Center non-profit service organization of which the candidate is a member.
No candidate shall be sponsored by more than one (1) organization.
No organization shall sponsor more than one (1) candidate.
The campaign of each candidate shall last no more than 60 days and not less than 30 days. The last day of the campaign shall be Friday prior to the Western Days Parade.
At a time designated by the Mayor’s Race Committee the candidate and/or a representative from his/her sponsoring organization shall present to the Western Days Treasurer in Room 5 at the Valley Center Community Hall, a check in the amount of campaign funds raised in the previous 60 days by sponsoring organization, along with a full accounting of all campaign funds raised. At no time after entering Room 5 shall a candidate or his/her representative leave until all money is presented.
At the time of accounting those present, in addition to the Western Days Treasurer, shall be the Western Days Co-Chairmen, Mayor’s Race Committee Co-Chairmen and each candidate and his/her representative.
The candidate from whichever organization raised the most money will be named the new Honorary Mayor of Valley Center and shall serve for one (1) year or until a successor is named.
All sponsoring organizations shall receive the amount of money they raised, less 5%, which will be donated by the Western Days Committee to the Valley Center Parks and Recreation to help defray the cost of rental of facilities for the Western Days event.
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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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