The VC Fire Protection District board Thursday adopted a weed ordinance, but put off implementing the program necessary to enforce it.
Directors decided not to hire Fire Prevention Services to administer the program after learning about extensive problems that the North County Fire Protection District has had with the company.
But to hear the company’s side of the story, and before making a final decision, the board has asked the company to send a representative to next month’s meeting.
The weed ordinance that was adopted is similar in most places to an existing County ordinance. It requires that property owners cut flammable materials around the borders of their property and within 100 feet of homes.
But the district doesn’t have the staff to implement such a program. That’s why the board was talking to San Diego based Fire Prevention Services Inc., which claims it is the only company that does what it does in the county.
Unique or not, last week North County Fire in Fallbrook dumped its year-to-year contract with the company. It had hired the firm in 2002 after the Gavilan fire burned 6,000 acres and 43 homes.
Much the same motivation was behind the multi-month process this spring and summer when the VC fire board moved towards a weed ordinance adoption.
At its Aug. 24 meeting, the North County Fire board heard complaints from several residents, one of whom complained of feeling “financially violated,” according to a report in the North County Times. “I’d rather spend $10,000 on an attorney than pay this bill,” the man was quoted by the Times.
Fire Prevention Services does not charge its clients. But the same company that makes recommendations to charge property owners is also the company that is paid to clean up the flammable material.
Its services are based on cost recovery. It acts on complaints directed towards property that has become a fire hazard. It contacts the property owner and gives him a chance to take care of the problem. If the problem is ignored eventually the case is taken to the fire board. Only then can the company assess an abatement fee.
At Thursday night’s meeting Fire Chief Kevin O’Leary, while favoring the ordinance, said that, based on his experience when such an ordinance was adopted in Ramona, that it would create “a public relations nightmare.”
O’Leary said he is talking with North County Fire Chief Bill Metcalf about the possibility of forming a consortium of area fire districts to deal with weed abatement
Director Mel Schuler said that he doubted that it was possible to enforce such an ordinance without being criticized by some members of the public.
Fire director Mike Pacheco said that before the ordinance is implemented that a committee should be formed to filter complaints to “insulate this board” from them.
Members of the VC Road Safety Subcommittee of the VC Planning Group Monday night got the blue plate special of information about upcoming and existing road projects.
• They looked at brand new schematics for the planned median along VC Road provided by Brendan McNabb, project manager for the VC Road widening project. Note: These schematics will be available at the VC library.
• They learned that the Dept. of Public Works will not be supporting the committee’s recommendation for a roundabout at the intersection of N. Lake Wohlford & VC Roads.
• They learned that the VC Road project south is ahead of schedule. Whether it will have enough money left over at the end to fund a landscaped median is not yet known.
Assisting McNabb in answering questions was Dept. of Public Works Asst. Director Doug Isbell, and traffic safety expert Hank Morris.
Ahead of Schedule
The widening of the south leg of Valley Center Road (from near Betsworth down to Escondido) is ahead of schedule, McNabb said.
“We have a good professional contractor in Yeager Skanska and a good contract management staff.” Communications are good between the County and the contractor, said McNabb.
Residents are cooperating by driving near the posted speed limits and are directing comments and concerns to the DPW’s road hotline (619-232-2640).
“We’re getting input whenever there’s a problem,” said McNabb.
Valleyites can get twice monthly updates on the road by subscribing to an e-mail newsletter (call the hotline to subscribe or send an email request to destreel@collaborativeservices.biz
Traffic was shifted recently from the east side of the road to the west side. This is allowing the contractor to build the first of three wildlife crossings under the road.
Animals are channeled into using the crossings by directional gates and fences. Whether animals of the two-legged variety will use the tunnel-like crossings to live will be dealt with if it occurs, said Isbell.
“If it becomes a problem we’ll call the sheriff,” he said.
Expect to see the work shift back to the east side of the road by November so that drainage can be installed before the winter rains begin.
The southern project is scheduled to be completed by October 2005 but if work continues at its current pace it could be completed by next summer.
Committee member Jon Vick asked if the project was on budget.
“Yes,” said McNabb.
“Any extra?” asked Vick, who is hoping that enough will be left over to help fund landscaping on the medians.
“Ask me in the summer of 2005,” said McNabb.
He noted that the contractor will be installing a continuously poured concrete k-rail to replace the current segmented divider. This will extend from Ridge Ranch Road to the Escondido city line. “It should look much better,” said McNabb.
Committee member Mary Meade asked how this continuous median will affect the ability of emergency vehicles to reach accidents. Without a means to cross over, as there is with segmented dividers, emergency vehicles must answer calls from the top of the grade going down, and from the bottom of the grade, to the eastbound lane.
Isbell said his staff has been in meetings with local fire officials and have been assured that engines from Escondido can respond to accidents on the eastbound lanes and that VC engines can respond for accidents in the westbound lanes.
“If there’s a serious accident one of the lanes can be closed so that they can come down the uphill lane, he said.
The city is in the design stage for its section of the road widening. It is not yet funded, said Isbell.
Northern Phase
The acquisition of rights of way along the northern leg of the road widening is nearly complete, said McNabb.
“We hope to complete this process by the end of the year,” he said. This will allow the project to be put out to bid by spring and for construction to begin next summer.
The second phase will run from a mile south of Banbury to a few hundred feet beyond the intersection of Cole Grade & Valley Center Roads.
Isbell said the department is working to come up with plans that fit the needs of property owners whose driveways are along the road widening.
Meade asked where the water will go since much of this part of town is part of a floodplain.
“We have devised a drainage system compatible with the hundred year flood,” said McNabb. “We’re really careful about not changing drainage patterns.”
Median Design
“We took the information from this group’s survey of two years ago and plotted 2.5 miles of median,” said McNabb. “We incorporated the input from all the owners and also looked at safety issues.”
The map showing where the medians will go will be available for viewing at the VC library.
McNabb described where the median, which will be 14 feet wide in most places, will be:
From Woods Valley to Mirar De Valle there will be a two-way left turn lane. The County felt that the commercial area and the Konyn dairy were not compatible with a median.
The median will begin past the dairy entrance. The first break after the dairy is a left turn lane at Sunday Drive, then the next break is at Valley Center Tire. The raised median will extend about 300 feet north of VC Tire and then a striped two-way left turn lane will continue from that point past Old Road to just north of Calle De Vista where the raised median will begin again and continue from this point to Lilac.
Another stretch of median will continue from Lilac to Chapparal, where there will be a left turn lane.
The median will continue to Canyon Drive and discontinue at the commercial and professional areas of town. There will be a left turn lane at Miller.
There will be intermittent raised medians between Miller Road and Valley Center Community Church. The raised median for safety purposes starts at the church and extends to Cole Grade Road.
This is required for safety purposes, to keep motorists from trying to cut across the lanes, said McNabb.
At the end of the presentation, Sandy Smith, chairman of the subcommittee, who had asked that concerned business people attend the meeting, asked:
“Any concerns about medians o’ business owners of Valley Center?”
Chamber of Commerce Vice President Tom Bumgardner, who with other chamber members (Ann Godwin, Jeanne Cornett) had attended, commented, “We’re not going to be able to get into the Chamber office, looks like.”
“We don’t mind,” said Barbara Olson, who, with Allen Olson, own the property that rents to the Chamber.
Mrs. Smith noted that there have been several disagreements between lessees and owners of properties impacted by the medians. In those cases the wishes of the owners were held to have precedence.
Allen Olson commented, “I’m happy to see that this median is practically the same thing that we came up with eight years ago when we first met with Dr. Rajan [the project manager at the time].
“I’m very upset with the Chamber!” declared Olson. “They ought to issue an apology for the lousy, ill-conceived survey that they did.”
“It’s just a time lag between giving the input and seeing the results,” offered Mrs. Smith.
Planning group candidate Don Richards added his own criticism: “I can’t believe that someone wrote a letter to Supervisor Horn on this issue without some communication between the Chamber and this group.”
“This isn’t a Chamber meeting,” said Mrs. Smith. “That’s more probably something that should be brought up at the Chamber meeting.”
Committee member Mary Meade praised the County “for being so willing to work with us as a community. Everyone was willing to listen to us from Day One. They were open to those seeds being planted. They took an almost progressive tack compared to most bureaucracies.”
Valley Center Road East
The County team also gave the subcommittee an update on planning for the intersection of Valley Center & North Lake Wohlford Roads.
The design for this project should be completed by spring. Work should begin in the summer and be finished by the end of the year.
They poured water on the subcommittee’s hopes that a roundabout could be built at the intersection.
A roundabout is a circular intersection used in Europe extensively, but quite rare in the United States.
Roundabouts, where they are implemented, are credited with reducing traffic delays and injury accidents.
Several factors weighed against the roundabout at this particular location, said McNabb.
One of the most important was that most people in this county have never seen one, and wouldn’t know how to react safely if they came upon one.
Another was that this particular intersection was that there isn’t enough visibility to warn the driver that they are coming onto a roundabout.
They estimated that a roundabout would cost $470,000 compared to $430,000 for a signal light intersection.
Meade pointed out that VC Fire Chief Kevin O’Leary has warned that the intersection, with the middle school nearby, is an accident waiting to happen, especially in the mornings and afternoons when school buses compete with casino traffic.
Morris said “That’s the beauty of a traffic signal. It takes away the confusion as to whose turn it is to go.”
Morris said he is a fan of roundabouts “and if this were flat it would be a good place, but with the grade coming up from Rincon it’s not a good place.”
Isbell added, “As much as we thought it might be a candidate we don’t think this is the time or the place for a roundabout. Let’s work together and find the right location and try one.”
The Friends of the Valley Center Library and The Roadrunner are co-sponsoring two Valley Center candidate forums early in October.
The first forum, Oct. 6, 6 p.m. in the Lilac Elementary School auditorium, will be for candidates of the VC planning group. All the candidates will be invited to the forum, which will include statements by the candidates, questions from the audience, and final statements. A meet the candidates reception will be held at 6 p.m. with the forum running from 7-9 p.m.
The second forum will be held the next night, Oct. 7, beginning at 6 p.m. This forum will be for candidates for the VC school board, Deer Springs fire board, VC Parks & Rec. board and VC water district board. The reception will be held at 6 p.m., followed by the forum from 7-9 p.m. The program will be similar to the forum held for the planning group.
David Ross, editor of The Roadrunner, will be moderator for both forums.
The public is invited to turn out and hear the candidates whose decisions will affect their lives in future years.
By DAVID ROSS
Analysis
Laurel Nicholson quips about her opponent, incumbent Ray Haynes, who stoutly refuses to vote for most budgets because he’s a “small government guy.”
“In my opinion,” she says, “the incumbent may not like pork, but we need an assembly person who can bring home the bacon.”
Mrs. Nicholson is campaigning hard for Republican voters and says she can’t win without them. She’s asking GOP (and Independent) voters to think outside of the ballot box and look beyond the fact that she is the Democratic nominee for the 66th Assembly District.
She’s trying to unseat San Diego’s often phantom representative, Ray Haynes in a district in which San Diego plays a small and often unimportant part compared to Riverside County.
A resident of Hidden Meadows, Mrs. Nicholson has been very visible locally. She rode in the Western Days parade in May. In October she attended the public meeting held shortly after the Paradise Fire— A meeting attended by most of VC’s elected representatives, from Congress on down (but where her opponent, the assemblyman, was absent).
Mrs. Nicholson helped a group of Valley Center High School youths organize a Democratic club. They will be walking precincts for her prior to the November election.
She has been speaking all over her district. Recently she spoke at the Fallbrook Democratic office , the first such office in that town in a dozen years or more.
“What I’ve been doing is walking precincts and only to Republican and Independent households,” says the candidate, adding. “Because in order to win we need crossover votes.”
Once doors open to her she has found that voters are angry about two issues: “unbridled, unmanaged, haphazard growth” and “border issues.”
Of course, as she points out, border control is a federal problem. But she contends that growth is “definitely something the state can do. We have grown without much foresight or planning. We need to put some thought into adding infrastructure.”
She adds, “Leadership comes from the top. If we say, like we have so far, that growth is wonderful and there shouldn’t be any restrictions, like Haynes has said, it filters down. If you go to Temecula or Murrietta and see the growth without the resources you see why people are angry. They moved there for the quality of life, but after a few years they see that quality of life slipping away.”
Things are different in San Diego County. Unlike Riverside, there’s no school overcrowding. “Here in Valley Center, we have the opposite, declining enrollment, because of the home prices. The only place its increasing is the high school.
“But growth issues are the same. Valley Center and Fallbrook are struggling with it in their own way. The question is: How do we expand and grow and keep the same country feel, keeping the reason we moved here in the first place, but widening some of the roadways and adding more conveniences of city life?”
We her positions on several issues that are in the news:
TransNet sales tax
ballot measure
No position yet.
Prop. 1A, which would prevent the Legislature from taking from local
government funds.
“The State has no business going into local coffers and taking their money,” said Mrs. Nicholson. “Local governments need the money as much as the State does. The State must live within its means. My idea with the budget was that if they can’t get an agreement on the mandated date when the law says it has to be approved, it reverts to the previous budget.”
Driver’s Licenses
for Illegal Aliens
“I don’t think illegal aliens should have a California driver’s licenses. The whole border policy needs revamping. But right now I’d like to see whatever it takes to close our borders, which are still open like a sieve. That should be the first priority of the federal government. That’s basic Homeland Security,” says Mrs. Nicholson.
Education
“Make public education a top priority and give more local financial control to local school districts, with parents and teachers having a vote on how that money is spent. I also support the PTA’s resolution for equitable and adequate for school transportation,” she says.
Sexual Predators
“We need to do more to protect our children and our elderly and in terms of that we should put serious sexual predators’ names up on the Internet. Under Megan’s Law we have high risk predators on the Internet, but we don’t have “serious” predators (who are much more numerous).” She would add “serious” offenders. “People are lulled into a false sense of security when they see there are only 17 “high risk” predators in the county. They both need to be up there.”
Nursing Homes
“In terms of the elderly there’s an enormous amount of abuse in nursing homes,” says the candidate. “The laws are in place but the enforcement isn’t there. We need to make sure that we have the funds to enforce and protect our elderly in our nursing homes.”
Population Growth
Mrs. Nicholson favors “smart growth, to make sure we have the infrastructure in place before we keep adding more and more subdivisions and to speed up the implementation of a high speed rail between Riverside and San Diego.” Los Angeles will have a high speed rail connecting it to Riverside before San Diego does. She blames this on Haynes.
“When I talk to experts on high speed rail and ask why they say the people in Sacramento don’t support it. If our current assemblyman actually lived here (instead of spending all his time in Sacramento) and actually had to drive these freeways he would see the importance of such transit.”
In summing up her positions, she suggests that people look at Haynes’s legislative record.
“If people would actually look at his record he has accomplished nothing in 12 years. It’s just a black hole. We are one of the fastest growing districts in the entire U.S. We need a representative who will work hard for this district,” she says.
Accusing Haynes of not voting for any state budget in the last 11 years, she says, “If you don’t vote for a budget you don’t get any money back to your district. So here we are, one of the fastest growing districts, sending all of our money to Sacramento. None of it is coming back to this district, because our representative is, in his own words “a small government kind of guy.
“If he doesn’t like what’s going on in Sacramento, I understand that, but we hire someone to be engaged in that process, to fight for us, to be an advocate, to get us the best deal we can possibly get. We don’t need obstructionist politics and that’s what we’ve gotten in the last 12 years.”
Returning to her theme that Republicans should vote for her, Mrs. Nicholson says, “I’m not driven by ideology and partisan politics. It’s time to get past that and elect people who just want to do what’s best for the district. I honestly think we have along the way lost that. If the best interest is a Republican idea or a Green idea, the important thing is to best represent the district We don’t need a voice piece for the party but someone who will represent the best interests of the district and be the moderate voice for this district, which I believe is right down the middle.
“Republicans should vote for me because I represent in many ways what they are looking for, which is fiscal responsibility and caring for the best interests of the community.”
Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is touted as the moderate Republican who reaches out to all parties, we asked Mrs. Nicholson about his performance so far.
“I think he’s done pretty well. I think he should have cut more in his budget and I thought there was too much borrowing and I don’t think he should have taken from local governments, that was totally wrong.”
* * *
Contact information for assembly candidate Laurel Nicholson include her web site: LaurelNich@aol.com, her phone number: (760) 749-7080 and address: POB 1912, Escondido, CA 92033-1912
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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