December 14, 2005 - Top Stories
The Valley Center Jaguars dominated for the second consecutive year at Qualcomm Stadium on Tuesday, beating the Santa Fe Christian Eagles, 31-13.
Coach Rob Gilster must have said, “Give the ball to Victor Medellin and have him run up the middle” because time after time that’s what he did. In the first nine and a half minutes of the game, Valley Center earned a first down with almost every play.
With a few intermittent passes to Kevin Schwertfeger and Trevor Reilly, a stumbling Medellin made his way to the four-yard line.
In a play the Eagles weren’t expecting, quarterback Dustin Aschbrenner connected with Schwertfeger for a four-yard touchdown pass. With two minutes and 49 seconds left in the quarter, the Jaguars were on the scoreboard, 7-0.
The Eagles managed about a minute of play time before they turned the ball over to Valley Center on a fourth down.
The second quarter started out the same with a pass to Schwertfeger for a first down. Medellin followed it up with a run up the middle gaining 12 and landing the Jaguars on 17-yard line.
Three minutes in, SFC’s Daniel Bohnstein intercepted a pass from Aschbrenner and the Eagles took over at their 13-yard line. But as quick as they had the ball, they lost it on an interception by VC’s Nate Porter. The Jaguars were back in action.
They worked their way up to goal line and Aschbrenner scored the second touchdown of the game.
After a brief stint with the Eagles, the ball was back in Jag possession.
Aschbrenner again found Reilly on a 19-yard play that put them at first and goal. At the five, Aschbrenner ran the ball in to bring the score to 21-0 at the end of the first half.
The third quarter ended as the most uneventful of the game. The only points making it onto the scoreboard were three from a 33-yard field goal by Justin Vosburg.
On kickoff Santa Fe Christian received the ball and began the fourth quarter on their 41-yard line. Proving to be the very definition of a fourth quarter team, the Eagles began a series of first downs.
Trevor Love hooked up with Kyle Shoemaker for a 36-yard touchdown pass.
SFC was on the scoreboard for the first time with nine minutes left in the game. Their two-point conversion failed, leaving the score at 24-6.
The next nine minutes were a free-for-all.
A 52-yard scoring drive was capped off by a 34-yard touchdown pass by Schwertfeger bringing the Jags up, 31. The Eagles followed suit with a touchdown pass from inside the 15-yard line.
But it was too little too late. Time ran out and the game ended, Valley Center 31, Santa Fe Christian 13.
Supt. Karen Jobe bade the school board a fond farewell Thursday night, the last school board meeting of the year, and the last of her three years as superintendent.
Her successor, Lou Obermeyer, will step into her shoes at the first of the year.
Mrs. Jobe leaves very few unfinished items hanging fire for the new super.
She announced at the end of the meeting that she had received a pledge that fills the remaining $75,000 in fund-raising to pay for the Maxine Theater.
“That closes the account,” she told The Roadrunner on Monday. Of course, donors can still purchase brass plaques on seats at the theater for $500 and the money will be used for theater needs.
On Thursday the school teachers union will vote on a 3% pay raise proposal that was submitted to them this week.
About the only unfinished item that the new super will have to address is a possible recommendation next month on whether to support the renewal of the charter of the All Tribes Charter School.
New Officers
The board elected new officers, including Henry Van Wyk as president, Lori Johnson as vice president and Don Martin as clerk.
Shortly after the election the board and audience adjourned to a room in the high school gym to see scenes from the upcoming high school production Beauty and the Beast, which will open in January.
All Tribes School
Mrs. Jobe and district finance director Pam Moe gave a report on the progress being made by the All Tribes Charter School to meet state and federal reporting requirements.
Mrs. Jobe recommended waiting a month for a final recommendation, which will give the new superintendent a chance to put her stamp on the issue.
Mrs. Moe reported that the charter school “is making progress, although not as rapidly as I would like.”
The critical piece in the puzzle, she said, is a lack of audits for 2003, 2004 and 2005.
The team that was assigned to do an audit for this year had to stop temporarily because of a lack of important information.
Mrs. Moe suggested that if the charter school files for an extension that the audits could probably be done by Jan. 31.
“They [the charter school and board] have taken this seriously,” said Mrs. Moe. “They have someone coming in to do board training. They do have trouble getting board members to regularly attend meetings.”
She noted that one board member of the tribal school resigned because of a lack of free time. Another was asked to resign for missing meetings.
“They have a long way to go,” said Mrs. Moe. “They have a difficult time understanding processes and procedures and in understanding that you can’t go from Stage one to Stage ten and then go back to Stage 2.”
In making her recommendation to move a vote on the matter back a month, Mrs. Jobe commented, “It’s still hanging there, but it’s a more viable thing then doing it twice.”
Thursday night the VC Fire Protection District board will hear presentations from two firms on different ways to get more funding from the community to meet the district’s infrastructure and operating needs.
The two firms are:
• Infrastructure Engineering Corp. Tom Franc and Devin Warren will present options for a ballot measure that would be voted on during a regular election.
• Berryman and Henninger. Dennis Klingerhaughfer and CPA Crandell will give a presentation on using a mail-in ballot. This is similar to how the Deer Springs Fire Protection District approved an assessment two years ago.
Several types of funding mechanisms are possible:
• General obligation bonds
• Certificates of participation (COPS)
• Community Facilities Dis-trict (CFD)
• Assessment upon real property.
Director Dan Thornton, who oversees the district’s budget, has warned fellow directors that the district will be looking at negative budget figures in a few years unless a new funding source is found for operating costs.
Merger Study Complicates Funding Issues
Complicating future funding efforts for this fire district is the ongoing study by LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) to merge many of the rural fire districts in the County, including Valley Center’s.
Last week LAFCO was given a report estimating that it will cost an additional $55 million in manpower costs to combine the 25 fire protection districts in question.
LAFCO has asked the Board of Supervisors to fund a more detailed version of the study at an estimated cost of $600,000.
County voters in 2004 approved a non-binding proposal to merge the fire districts, however no costs were mentioned in the ballot measure.
Since then the commission has been studying such a merger.
Fire districts, such as Valley Center’s have been presented with opportunities to comment on how to do such a merger. However, they have not been given the option of saying whether they favor the idea or not.
Supervisor Dianne Jacob has been the driving force behind the merger study. The Board of Supervisors in June supported her proposal to ask the State to shift some property tax revenues from schools to be used for creation of the regional fire department.
Valley Center Fire Protection District, which was created more than 20 years ago, has always had problems with funding because it was created after the adoption of Prop. 13, when rules were changed on how special districts could fund themselves with property tax revenues.
The board meeting is held Thursday, 7 p.m., in the water district board room.
The planning group is mad as hell and it’s not going to take it anymore!
Well, that’s probably an exaggeration. But they are certainly irked (and we mean REALLY peeved) by County staff’s complete disregard for their votes on confining sewer service to the north and south villages as defined by the urban limit.
Monday night they decided to do something about it. Or not.
They voted to set up a subcommittee to study their options. To perhaps contact other planning groups to gauge the depths of their frustration with the County’s General Plan 2020. Maybe to form a coalition.
You might look on it as an act of defiance. Or not.
The County Dept. of Planning & Land Use’s view is that sewers should freely roam the Valley as long as the density established by GP2020 is followed.
The group’s view is that sewers should be confined within the urban limit line, otherwise, they induce growth.
“The sound you hear,” remarked planning Chairman Andy Washburn, “is the sound of Valley Center’s door opening to development.”
The group generally felt that setting up the subcommittee would fire a shot over the County’s bow.
* * *
A little history is probably in order now.
Several weeks ago the water district asked the planning group and County Dept. of Planning & Land Use to comment on its proposed “policy for the provision of wastewater services.”
The group voted to urge that sewers be confined within the north and south nodes.
“I think it’s fair to say that a lot has happened since then,” commented Washburn Monday night. If you listened closely you could almost hear his support for the GP2020 process melting
“At all of the public hearings on this issue the public has said again and again that they want to remain rural,” he said. “We’ve had to compromise from time to time, but on the other hand we’ve kept the small town character because of this idea that there is a line on the map and it represents the limit of city-like services. That has been an essential piece of our GP2020 map for the last several years.”
So he and the rest of the group were nonplused when they read the County’s input to the water district.
“They were far less restrictive than us. When I contacted [senior planner] Bob Citrano indicating my concern, it became clear that in preparing their response DPLU had not sought input from the chair of the planning group, or chair of the GP2020 subcommittee,” said Washburn.
This led to a meeting Nov. 18 with various County big hats, including Citrano and Ivan Holler, who is directing the GP2020 process countywide.
“After initial interests in our concern, all of the DPLU people joined in a chorus of “it’s the density map that’s important, not the sewer,” said Washburn.
It could run past the urban limit line to serve public facilities, e.g. the high school, and homes could connect along that line. Owners of parcels could then ask for variances to zoning because they are next to a sewer.
“To make the extreme case, if the sewer line was run out to the high school and Betsworth, we would lose our small town and have a built out suburb very quickly,” said Washburn.
Other planners indicted their frustration.
Lael Montgomery commented, “Our fear is that once the pipe is in it’s a beautiful argument for a general plan amendment. Staff feels that the density is our protection.”
Kris Preston commented, “What they have basically done is waste our time. All this time our supposition was that urban limit line meant something.”
Washburn added, “What has become clear to me is just how little influence we really have. . . It brings up the question, just how much right does a community have to define itself? I’m learning how little right we have relative to large economic interests who have a lot more right than we have.”
Planner Keith Simpson said, “I’m not sure how useful it is to view DPLU as a monolith. I’m sure that a lot of them are our friends. It’s not like all of them are in direct opposition to us.”
“They may be sympathetic to us but it’s not like they are going to lose their jobs to help us,” countered Debra Hofler. “Perhaps it is time to look at incorporation.”
Larry Glavinic said he didn’t know many planning groups in the county that are happy with county staff on GP2020.
Planner Maurice Cloutier said that perhaps the group should try to influence sewer policy at the level of the water board.
Dr. Hofler suggested a petition drive to pressure the water district board, an idea that Preston seconded.
Not everyone was critical of the DPLU’s position.
Said Simpson, “Their stance with regard to the map being the restraining device is hard to attack. It’s like we are trying to use this policy over here, which doesn’t have anything to do with density, to restrain density.”
Complaining that the GP202 was supposed to be a “bottom up” planner Larry Glavinic commented, “The County didn’t like what came from the elected planning groups so they formed the GP2020 Interest Group. Maybe we should form a group that meets without them. We’ve been very, very patient in my view, hoping that they would work something out. “
He proposed creating an ad hoc subcommittee to contact other planning groups.
“They [DPLU] will view this as a threat. It lets them know that we don’t like the way they are running things.”
He added that the planning group should send a representative to January’s water board meeting to try to influence the board’s decision.
VC Fire Protection District has received a grant for $5,000 for swift water rescue equipment. A firefighter is shown practicing in Adams Park pool.
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