July 20, 2005 - Top Stories
By DAVID ROSS
It’s 20 years from now. Imagine stepping into a two seater gumdrop “car” at a junction near the VC Community Hall and across the street from where the water district administrative offices have been for a dozen years.
Your car is lifted until it is suspended about 20 feet in the air, hanging from a metal track that runs along metal poles that have replaced the existing wooden poles.
You are whisked along at a brisk pace, much faster than the automobile traffic passing under you. But you really don’t pay any attention to the traffic since all of the driving is being done for you by a computer.
George Jetson, call home!
In air-conditioned comfort, you take out your disposable laptop computer and log onto the Internet where you read the latest political gossip and then start to watch a movie.
You move along smoothly to the intersection of Lilac and Valley Center Road, but your car doesn’t stop. Instead, without a bump, it moves onto Valley Center Road, which has remained a four lane road, but which is once more lined by tall, stately trees and fringed by bike and walking lanes.
There’s also a whole lot less traffic, mainly because a lot of the traffic that used to go on the road is now up there with you, riding 20 feet in the air. At some points in the trip your car is moving at speeds in excess of 100 mph.
These speeds are possible because traffic is being controlled by computer, which routes cars in the network the same way that email is moved along the Internet.
Portals where you can stop are placed at intervals of about a quarter of a mile along your route. When you decide to stop, your car is pulled off the track while traffic continues to move without you.
You ride the car (or pod or teardrop or whatever you want to call it) along Valley Center Road and then up North Lake Wohlford Road to Valley View Casino, where you stop for lunch.
While you are dining your car is stored along with dozens of other cars. Because they are two-seaters and because they are all the same size, and the same lightweight material, they fit together neatly in a surprisingly small space next to the junction.
Later you take the sky-train to the Rincon Indian reservation where you stop at Harrah’s casino for some blackjack.
Then, continuing in your gaming mood, you board the sky-train, which turns left on Hwy 76 and takes you first to Casino Pauma, and then to Pala Casino.
You pause from your computer to enjoy the view along the highway, which was never actually widened because it didn’t need to be. The sky-train took care of all of the traffic that was generated by the casinos.
Hwy 76 remained what it had always been, a beautiful, scenic road dotted by farms, groves and nurseries.
During your journey your car actually doesn’t come in contact with the track. It is suspended by the power of magnetism.
Remember when you were a kid and someone gave you two magnets to play with and you tried to push them together at their positive or negative poles?
This kind of people mover is called Mag-Lev. And it’s definitely feasible. Many cities are looking at them as a way to defeat gridlock and create safe, environmentally friendly modes of transportation.
They are also looking at spending billions of dollars before such transportation comes on line.
But could such a “sky train” actually help alleviate traffic problems in Valley Center or along the Hwy 76?
A group of entrepreneurs who own a company Unimodal, believe that it could.
A representative of Unimodal, Chris Perkins, made a presentation to the July Tribal Forum at Harrah’s.
He was talking to a lot of hard-headed, skeptical people, including representatives of area tribes and local governments. This group has been meeting to talk about problems common to both tribes and non-tribes.
One of the most pressing problems that faces all of them is: traffic.
Which is why Larry Glavinic, the chairman of the planning group subcommittee that has been putting on the meetings, invited Perkins to make the Unimodal presentation.
“Just a little something to get the imagination going,” he commented.
There’s lots of Mag-Lev proposals out there, but most of them involve actual trains.
Unimodal is unique in that it proposes personalized cars and tracks that could be put along existing utility rights-of-way.
Unimodal claims that it could build a network of skytrains (it calls them “sky trans”) for significantly less than what would be required to build a train network.
How much less? They estimate they can build the system for about a million dollars a kilometer. That compares to tens of millions per mile that are being estimated by most other Mag-Lev proponents.
Unimodal also estimates that passengers would be able to ride the sky tran for about 10 cents a mile.
A plus from their standpoint, and from the standpoint of something actually being done, is that they wouldn’t have to get the government involved in funding it.
The government would be involved in selling them the right to use the utility rights of way, but no taxpayer funding would be needed to put in the first sky trans. Just visionary investors.
Unimodal plans to open the first demonstration model of its system in Seattle in the near future.
Even if Unimodal fulfills its dream, don’t look for cars to disappear.
“We’re not replacing cars,” said Perkins. “We’re replacing what 95 percent of cards do.”
People would still need personal cars to go places where the sky tran doesn’t go. But Unimodal’s system, or a system like it, could definitely help move people faster. And because they could board it when and where they like, they would not lose the personal freedom that a car, as opposed to mass transportation provides.
How would replacing 95% of cars on the road change Valley Center’s way of life?
Just imagine.
It’s official.
The school board Thursday night took Supt. Karen Jobe’s recommendation and named the soon-to-be-completed high school theater: “The Maxine.”
After taking a tour of the inside of the theater, which is taking shape and starting to resemble what it will become, the board named the theater after the late wife of Sherman Finger. He is a man who has devoted his time to persuading others to donate to the theater, and who has made large donations himself.
Maxine was the first name of a woman who was universally known as “Mickey.”
“I really agonized over this,” Mrs. Jobe told the board. She noted that she had had two requests to honor the Fingers as well as a request that the theater not be named after a living person.
“I give credit to Mary Gorsuch, who knew that Maxine was Mickey’s actual first name,” said the superintendent.
Stainless steel letters will go on the side of theater, designating it as “The Maxine Theater.”
“We will be at The Max on Nov. 13 for the theater opening,” said Mrs. Jobe.
The board also acknowledged a donation of $3,000 from the high school drama club, for the theater. The money will be used for the sound system.
About $250,000 in matching funds remains to be donated, said Mrs. Jobe.
“We have pledges from two groups for $75,000. Which leaves $175,000 to raise.”
She said that her goal is to take care of that before she leaves as superintendent at the end of the year.
Career Technical Education
Denise McAndrews, director of Adult Education gave a report on Career Technical Education, aided by Camille Martineau, ROP instructor.
Mrs. McAndrews noted that income generated by ROP (Regional Occupational Program) has doubled over last year.
The program this year added three new courses in three industry sectors and taught 232 students.
The ROP program focuses on career education.
“We like to think of it as school to work. We hope that students will exit our course and get employment, which can help pay for college,” she said.
“I like to think of ROP as being an integral part of our career technology program.”
She conceded that the ROP courses have been a little “cart before the horse” in that the capstone classes were offered, but the classes to provide paths to them were not offered.
That is going to change.
The committee that is in charge of recommending what vocational courses to offer recognizes that “You can’t just throw a class onto the schedule,” in Mrs. McAndrews’s worlds. “You have to look at what is going to be needed in San Diego and California in terms of jobs. After age 16 it’s good for the kids to get work experience, but it has to be in the right sectors,” she said.
Camille Martineau talked about horticulture classes and landscape design classes as part of this format.
They will use a series of projects that will present real life problems.
“Each project has a unique twist,” said Martineau. Such as designing a garden for man with a disability, or one for a woman with Alzheimer’s.
The students will turn scale drawing into designs on a CAD drawing program. They will be able to build 3-D pictures of their proposed projects.
“In the past we had a hard time keeping landscaping going, but with this it makes it exciting,” said Martineau.
Bleacher Seats
Last month the board authorized the administration to go to bid on replacing the Jaguar stadium metal bleachers. The district rents the bleachers. It wanted to replace them because they tilt.
However, since that meeting the contractor they had been talking to pointed out that they had been given incorrect information that would have increased the cost far more than the board authorized. It turns out that new bleachers will require considerable pouring of concrete, which adds to the cost.
The contractor suggested that the district “live with” the existing bleachers until it’s time to redo the track and then do the two projects together.
Meantime, the listing of the bleachers can be fixed for the time being.
“When a company tells you don’t buy from us, stick with your rental, it makes sense,” said Mrs. Jobe. “At least for the short-term.”
The state’s architect is slowing the district down on its plans to replace the press box at the stadium, and it probably won’t be done now until the middle of the football season, she said.
However part of that same project is replacing some of the concrete seats with seats made of metal.
The board followed Mrs. Jobe’s recommendation to go to bid for about $24,000 to do that job before the football season begins.
The total bleacher project, which the board had authorized, was originally to have been $100,000.
The San Pasqual Tribe is in the process of a rezone that would make legal the casino parking lot it operates on land that it owns at the corner of Valley Center Road & North Lake Wohlford Road, next to the middle school.
It applied for the rezone last September.
The parking lot is brightly lit at night and is used to shuttle casino employees to and from Valley View Casino, about a half-a-mile away.
Supervisor Bill Horn’s office has been peppered by complaints about the parking lot for months, but the tribe is in the middle of the permitting process.
Although they are currently in violation of the existing zoning, the tribe a couple of months ago put blacktop on the lot in anticipation of a favorable ruling from the County.
The land in question is not a part of the reservation, i.e. it is not land put “in trust” by the federal government. It is owned by the tribe but subject to county regulations.
It is standard operating procedure for the County to stop an code enforcement actions if a land owner has applied for a zoning change that would make an existing use legal.
In order to grant the rezone, the County may require that the tribe contribute over $500,000 to the Valley Center Road Project to improve the road east from Cole Grade Road to the San Luis Rey River Bridge and agree to pay for improving North Lake Wohlford Road as well as $100,000 for the road improvement from Woods Valley to Cole Grade Road and meet other county environmental requirements.
Nearly a year ago the VC Planning Group voted unanimously to oppose the rezone.
The lot was used as a staging point by firefighters during the Paradise Fire in the fall of 2003.
By DAVID ROSS
She’s so new and her position is so new that she doesn’t even have a uniform yet.
Brynda Wierson has taken over the duties of fire district administrator for the VC Fire Protection District, a position that she will be the first to occupy.
Until she arrived, the duties of district administrator and fire marshal had been carried out for many years by Joy Justis.
However, with the continual growth of the district, inspections and plan checks have become the major part of Justis’s job.
At the urging of directors such as finance director Dan Thornton, the district created the position of district administrator.
“It covers all of the financial aspects of the district,” Mrs. Wierson told The Roadrunner this week.
“I have two people that work with me in clerical and book keeping.”
Her duties include payroll, staffing, employment and general business activities of the district. She reports directly to Chief Kevin O’Leary and works closely with the board of directors, preparing agendas and board packets.
Mrs. Wierson has previously been in banking for 22 years, the last 17 of which was internal auditing. She worked for Bank of America, including one year in Asia. The last seven years was in Provident Savings Bank in Riverside.
She and her husband, Glen, who is employed with Primo Construction in Fallbrook, moved to Valley Center in April. She is the daughter-in-law of longtime VC resident Emma Jean Low.
She’s excited to be at her new position. “I felt I could use my skills to add value to the business and organization skills of the district.”
It’s no secret that the fire district last year was shaken by an internal scandal when it was discovered that a former employee had been issued twice as many checks as she was supposed to get for several months.
The error was discovered during a routine audit.
A major part of Mrs. Wierson’s job is quality control and implementing safeguards to ensure that such a thing never happens again.
“Part of my job is to ensure appropriate safeguards, segregation of duties and monitoring of internal controls to ensure that proper business practices are in place,” she said.
In other words, to ensure there are no screwups.
She will work on creating the board’s monthly agendas. She will work closely with the budget committee in finalizing the budget each year. Currently she is working with Thornton to finish the 2005-2006 budget, that the board will adopt at its July 28 meeting.
“The most challenging part of this job is evaluating and documenting functions that have been performed by one person over the years,” she says. “Many of which are in her head.”
She adds, “It’s a great group of people to work with and I have been welcomed by Joy and she is more than willing to share her experience and duties for the good of the team.”
Mrs. Wierson was drawn to the job because it allows her to become more active in the community.
“I will be attending functions around town representing the chief, and while I don’t give fire prevention talks, I can help inform the community about the work of the fire district,” she said.
She is available to speak to public service groups. Rotary and Kiwanis Club program chairmen take note!
Board Pres. Stan Johnson told The Roadrunner that he is very happy to have Mrs. Wierson on board.
“There’s always been a need for an administrator to take some of those duties away from our fire marshal so she can do the inspections and fire marshal duties,” he said.
“Mrs. Wierson seems very qualified and has been in the banking business for years dealing with security and is very familiar with good business practices. She is very personable and a good addition to our fire district.”
The Valley Roadrunner
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Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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