By RIK ESPINOSA
PALOMAR MOUNTAIN — An experienced backwoods hunter wanted by authorities on a variety of felony complaints and charges eluded a dragnet near the Palomar Observatory Friday, but was captured Saturday near a bar at the northern base of the mountain.
Riverside County Deputy Steven Fredericks apprehended Eugene William Brustowicz about 4 p.m. Saturday near a bar on State Hwy 79 near the community of Sage at the northern base of Palomar Mountain just north of the San Diego County line.
Brustowicz, 36, was out on bail following an incident in late February in San Diego where he allegedly shot at his girlfriend using a rifle. At that incident he surrendered to San Diego police SWAT officers after a 12-hour standoff.
Early Saturday morning, San Diego police asked officers in Murrieta to arrest Brustowicz on a warrant for negligent discharge of firearm in connection with the February incident, San Diego Sheriff’s Dept. spokesman Chris Saunders said. But when officers arrived where Brustowicz was staying, he raced away in his pickup truck.
California Highway Patrol officers took up the chase from Murrieta police as the sometimes high-speed pursuit wound its way south on interstates 215 and 15 to Hwy 79 where Brustowicz then turned up a dirt road near Aguanga and began climbing the back side of Palomar Mountain, stopping near a fire lookout tower east of the observatory about 6:30 a.m., officials said.
Brustowicz fled into the mountain terrain and officers feared he was armed when an empty rifle case was found in his abandoned truck, Saunders said. “He knows this area very well.”
County Sheriff’s SWAT team — officially the Special Enforcement Detail — was called and the observatory and northeast part of the mountain were closed to visitors, hikers and mountain bikers, he said.
U.S. Forest Service police also assisted in the manhunt for Brustowicz as the area of the search is part of the Cleveland National Forest.
K-8 students of the nearby Palomar Mountain School were never exposed because the school’s principal Mary Gorsuch, was able to activate the staff/parent ‘phone tree’ and call all parents early in the morning to let them know that the school would be closed for the day.
Thus they didn’t have to evacuate children or go to a lockdown mode.
There were no tours scheduled at the observatory Friday, spokesman Scott Kardel said.
“We were alerted early this morning that there was an armed and likely dangerous individual on the east side of Palomar who was likely headed our way,” said Kardel.
He added, “By the time I arrived at the Observatory members of law enforcement were already here. During the morning their numbers increased by several orders of magnitude with Sheriff, CHP, S.W.A.T units, K-9 units, helicopters and members of the news media turning out in droves.”
Deputies were seen perched at the top of the world-famous dome housing the 200-inch Hale telescope using much, much smaller binocular optics to search for the suspect.
The Sheriff’s ASTREA helicopter was also used in the search but the FLIR infrared system that uses body heat to find people was not usable because of all the mountain rocks reflecting high temperatures.
Searching the rough and rugged terrain for Brustowicz during a very hot day was exhausting work for the SWAT team and several hours after the search began deputies pulled back leaving a few officers to patrol the area, Sheriff’s Sgt. Ed Wells said.
“He is an expert hunter and tracker,” said Wells, who works out of the Sheriff’s Valley Center Substation. “We backed off so he would feel more comfortable and it worked.”
Brustowicz apparently hiked down the mountain without any food or water and made it to the bar in Sage where he called his girlfriend, who then called police.
Brustowicz lives in San Diego County. He will face additional charges in Riverside and San Diego counties for eluding police, Wells said.
During the search, deputies in the ASTREA helicopter spotted a car in a remote area near where Brustowicz was feared hiding. Inside the car was a badly decomposed body of what appeared to be male who had been reported missing from Oceanside several weeks ago, Wells said. There was a suicide note found with the body and officials do not suspect foul play, the sergeant said.
The Roadrunner interviewed newly installed Valley Center Planning Group Chairman Sandy Smith last week.
Q: How long have you been on the planning group?
A: Three and a half years. I was elected in 2000.
Q: What do you do for a living?
A: I’m a human resource manager for the federal courts.
Q: How long have you lived in Valley Center?
A: I moved here in 1997 along with my husband and son, two dogs, and two owls with families.
Q: Why do we have a planning group?
A: Well, to give local community input to the County on our land use issues and questions.
Q: How much influence does the group have on what the County actually does?
A: It’s actually gotten better in the last few years. If the County knows that we have questions and concerns then they’ll at least work through the questions with us. Whether they actually follow what we ask for is another question. But in the projects I have been involved with, an open dialogue has definitely been encouraged.
Q: What is the biggest public misconception about the planning group’s job?
A: I think most of the community, or some, view us as more of a city council, in that they think we handle enforcement issues, or really almost anything a normal city council would do. They don’t understand that we are advisory on land use planning only.
Q: What do you see the chairman’s job as being?
A: I think the biggest difference between the chair and a board member is being the official spokesperson for the planning group, certainly to set the agendas and run the meetings.
Q: What is your main goal or goals to achieve while you are chairman?
A: I would like to be able to increase the involvement from the community in some of the major initiatives that are going on in the community, the two major ones being GP2020 particularly as it concerns the Village; and the roads. Certainly the VC road project but also improving circulation in the town. For us to really represent the community we need to hear back more from the people on what they want.
Q: How much of your job is leadership, how much is just running a meeting?
A: I think honestly the largest percentage is the leadership. Certainly running the meeting is part of that because of what you put on the agenda and how you run it. I think more of the job is making sure that the members and community are aware of what the key issues are and making sure that we present forums for that to happen and then presenting the results to the County. That’s where the leadership role is.
Q: What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the planning group in the next few months?
A: The biggest is still GP2020, particularly as it effects planning the Village area and circulation.
Q: What is our Country Town eventually going to look like?
A: That’s something we are trying to figure out right now with the County and the developments that are in the pipeline and the people who are working out the GP2020 proposal. That’s at a critical stage.
Q: How so?
A: We’re trying to integrate the Village plan with GP2020 with the current developments. We’re asking the County and Supervisor Bill Horn to support that effort and asking the County to continue to support us with professional help. We need to have that figured out in the next six months to implement as part of GP202. If not then each piece will develop on its own, and not as part of an integrated plan.
So whether the Village becomes very densely populated with dense population, industry, and commercial, or whether it has open space, or whether it’s more of a suburbia, that’s where we need to hear from the community.
People can write us at POB 127, Valley Center, CA 92082. People can call the VC planning number, which is 751-7306 and leave their comments on the answering machine. Or I will be at the library, in the Valley Center Room on March 20 from 10 a.m. - noon with the map. We will also have a special meeting at VC Community Hall on March 29, 7 p.m. specifically to discuss the Village. We also have the monthly meetings of the Village subcommittee on the first Monday of each month, 7 p.m. at the lower elementary school.
Q: Do you support the tenets of Smart Growth? Why?
A:I do support Smart Growth, but I don’t think it’s relevant in VC. Smart growth at its core says to put population where there is current infrastructure, sewers, roads, jobs. And if you look at VC we don’t really have that. It’s one issue we are trying to work with the County on during these discussion to decide what Smart Growth means in VC. In some areas it means a density of 20 units per acre in the core. To me that doesn’t feel right in VC. To me, a quarter acre is dense in VC. We are trying to figure out how that works in VC because we are so unique. I think it makes sense to put more population in the center, but it’s unrealistic without the sewer. You don’t want to be so dense that it changes the character of the town.
Q: Do you think Valley Center will get another east west connector road anytime in the next decade or beyond?
A: I know that it’s a high priority on the County’s list now. They are supposed to come to us in the next few months and make a suggestion. Whether it goes all the way to the freeway or is more internal east west is another question.
Q: Are you happy with the GP2020 process so far?
A: Yes and no. I don’t think they’ve allowed enough community input. I’m disappointed that some equity mechanism is not part of that process, and is on a separate track, if at all. And really, in trying to figure out the Villages, it’s really intense right now.
Editor’s Note: The “equity mechanism” referred to is also called TDRs, or transfer of development rights, and refers to a proposal to reimburse property owners in some way for being downzoned.
Q: How much practical influence is the planning group having in GP2020?
A: I think actually quite a lot, with the exception of getting an equity mechanism. The County made a lot of adjustments to our maps based on feedback from our residents and the residents who spoke up at the planning commission meeting. But you had to be a squeaky wheel, and I’m afraid that a lot of residents didn’t take the time to find out how it would affect their specific property.
Q: What kind of town are you and your colleagues on the group trying to achieve?
A:I do believe that we feel that the town runs from Woods Valley Road to Vesper. and that we want to maintain the open space to keep it feeling like two special nodes. In essence I believe that whole area needs to be planned, with enough retail to support community needs, without changing the community character. We do support low end affordable housing, and more residential, but that’s difficult to achieve without the sewer.
Q: Is Valley Center, as your predecessor said, becoming gentrified? ie. are normal folks priced out of the housing market?
A: Yeah, I think it is increasingly hard to buy property anywhere in San Diego. Values in VC have really increased. Lots of people are depending on their families to get them a start.
Q: How much of what you achieve as a planner is affected by the existence of the two casinos in close proximity?
A: Actually quite a bit. Certainly it’s impacting our circulation. That leaves us to push the County for more interior circulation routes, without everyone, including casino traffic, having to be on VC Road. But I do think there is an opportunity from the casinos. If we can plan our Village in a way to make the casino traffic stop and find out about Valley Center and try the restaurants and shops. That’s to our advantage.
Q: Is the two-acre minimum a defensible standard for VC, or will it become a thing of the past?
A: There’s still quite a bit of two acre minimum left, but there are some large areas proposed to be changed to four acres. Two acre throughout a community is defined by the County as sprawl. That’s what they are trying to get away from. I think that all of VC being two acre won’t be continued.
Q: How practical is it for residents to try to limit the size of a supermarket on a business venture such as the proposed shopping center?
A: I would hope that we could influence a developer to stay within the community character. I don’t know if that’s making the store small, or rather just to make it so that it doesn’t look like a big box. I think that’s the influence we are trying to have.
I don’t think people realize how long it takes to make things happen. For instance, Woods Valley has been in the planning stages for ten years. Planning how you grow is a longterm process. The best time to get involved is when the plans are being formulated, not when the ground is being ripped up. Now is the time to get involved with the Village, and the roads, and where the interior circulation should be. Things like the design of VC Road, particularly from Woods Valley to Cole Grade, is pretty much a done deal. Beyond that, from Cole Grade to Rincon, is in the planning stages. Now is the time to get in your two cents on what that looks like even though it may not happen for six year.s The message is that this is really longterm planning, and to be involved you need to be there from the start.
“It’s a real feather in our cap!” announced Valley Center High School Principal Lucy Haines at Thursday night’s school board meeting.
The “feather” was the six year accreditation that the school has earned from the Accrediting Commission for Schools, Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges.
Holding the Jan. 30 letter from the commission, the principal told the board and audience, “I couldn’t be more thrilled to stand here this evening and share this letter, granting the high school a six year accreditation. We got full accreditation. It speaks to the support of the administration and staff and sharing what wonderful things are going on at VCHS. For a school that’s only six years old that’s very commendable. I’m thrilled!”
The letter from the commission chairman, Christina L. Dyer noted, “This action was taken after a careful study of the Visiting Committee Report, which noted many laudable aspects of the school. The Commission is confident that your continuing efforts to improve the school will be reinforced by prompt attention to the critical areas for follow-up within the action plan.”
A school can get between one and six years accreditation.
This is actually the first real accreditation that the five year old school has received since opening.
Fiddler, without beards
Thursday night was a VC annual tradition, the appearance before the school board of the cast of a theatrical production. Over the years, before the high school was born, it was Shakespearean and other productions at the middle school. Often it has been high school productions. This time it was the cast and director, and the parents and family of the latest Middle School theatrical effort, Fiddler on the Roof, Jr. The show is co-directed by Rich Horne and Crystal Choate.
“It has been very interesting watching students walking around on campus, with beards,” observed middle school Principal Chris Sommer.
“We left the beards at home tonight,” Horne told the board. “but if you come on the 19th you’ll see the beards.
The students performed Matchmaker and Sunrise, Sunset
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