February 15, 2006 - Top Stories
On Friday St. Stephen’s Catholic Church parishioners attended the long-awaited dedication ceremony of their new building.
But not before 76 of them headed out for a little pilgrimage that began in Escondido and ended 12 miles later in Valley Center.
It is an ancient tradition in the Catholic church to process from the Mother Church to the new church on the day of dedication. St. Stephen’s was formed as a parish in 1981. Prior to that it was a satellite community in Valley Center for the Resurrection Church in Escondido.
Since Resurrection is the mother church for the St. Stephen’s parish, the hike commenced there.
The hikers began at 7 a.m. leaving the church and hiking up to the Daley Ranch parking lot. Most of that leg was uphill and said by many to be the toughest part of the pilgrimage.
From the parking lot, they hiked from Daley Ranch to Gil Salinas’s home in Valley Center. There the parishioners stopped for some lunch, fellowship and water. The temperature was climbing and the sun was only getting hotter.
From the Salinases, they made another brief stop at the Valley Center Library and History Museum before marching down Cole Grade Road to arrive at the new building next to Valley Center High School.
Though the hike was long and somewhat arduous, all 76 members arrived with smiles on their faces and an energy that carried them through the heat and burning muscles.
Present in the group was the youngest traveler, Jose Soria. At 2-years old, Jose took turns walking, being carried and being pushed in his stroller.
On the other end of the generational spectrum was 81-year-old Don Beck. As mentioned previously in a Roadrunner article, Beck completed the John Muir Trail over 25 years ago with his wife and 12 children in tow. Well, the man still has it. This hike was a cakewalk for him and his daughter Nancy as they arrived at the Valley Center Library a little sweaty but otherwise in good spirits.
After a brief shower and rest, the parishioners showed back up at the church for the dedication ceremony in the late afternoon.
The Reverends and Bishops had a beautiful procession in the new sanctuary. The Bishops blessed and anointed the four corners of the church and those in attendance.
St. Stephen’s followed the service with a barbecue reception.
Authorities investigating a reported sighting of a tiger Saturday morning by a resident of Carney Lane & McNally turned up nothing—it may have been a mountain lion.
Engineer Brian Castellini of the VC Fire Dept. told The Roadrunner, “I was working at the station on Lilac on Saturday, 9:15 a.m. when I received a phone call from a gentleman on Carney Lane, across from McNally Road. [The Sheriff’s Dept. calls the location the block of 36000 Patricia Road.] He said that there was a tiger, orange and black stripes with a beige collar around its neck, weighing 400-600 pounds.”
Other witnesses described the cat as being twice the size of a dog.
“At that point I notified our dispatch and requested Animal Services and the Sheriff’s department and responded to the reporting party’s location,” said Castellini.
The fire department arrived at the scene and interviewed the person who made the call.
The grove owner, Kevin Livingston, said that one of his workers was clearing brush on the property and alerted him to the possible tiger.
According to the grove worker, when he saw the big cat it was 100 yards away and heading toward Pauma Valley.
“We interviewed the worker who gave us the same description,” said Castellini. “He said he was cutting brush and saw a tiger under the trees in a group of orange trees.”
The worker and the tiger stared at each other, and then the worker said that he walked slowly backwards towards the house, where he grabbed his .22 rifle and his wife and went to report the sighting to his employer.
Livingston, who never claimed to have seen a tiger himself, reported that a few minutes later he saw what he thought was a juvenile mountain with stripes and a long tail in the nearby gully.
Sgt. Darrell Carr of the VC Sheriff’s Substation reported getting several phone calls on the big cat.
“We called California Fish & Game and they checked their registry of exotic animals to see if someone had one missing. They came back and said that no one was registered in this area and that the Stehly family, which used to have exotic animals, hasn’t done it for years,” said Carr.
A call to the San Diego Wild Animal Park by The Roadrunner also determined that none of the four tigers at the park are missing.
Valley Center deputies, Sheriff’s ASTREA helicopter and State Fish & Game wardens were dispatched to search for the animal. After an extensive search they were unable to locate it.
“They determined that it was a juvenile mountain lion,” said Carr. A deputy went around the neighborhood to warn residents of the possible danger. Carr received no more calls on it.
Reports of mountain lions are fairly common in VC. More so in the years since it became illegal to hunt the big cats in California.
Local farm workers in Valley Center, some of whom speak Spanish, often refer to any large cat as “El Tigre.”
The 23,000 acres of the Rancho Guejito, the last intact Spanish land grant in California, will not be developed for the foreseeable future.
“Mercy no, we’re not going to develop it!” exclaimed Nancy Coates, widow of Benjamin Coates, whose family has owned the historic rancho in Valley Center since the 1970s.
The land will remain as she described it, as a place where “It is as if time stands still. You are spellbound by its vast and peaceful serenity.”
Mrs. Coates presented a check for $25,000, the first of a $100,000 endowment, to Bill Hutchings, president of the VC History Museum board Thursday morning at the museum.
During her remarks she said, “Guejito ranch is the most beautiful property that my husband ever owned and the place where he was the happiest and which he enjoyed more than anything else.”
She noted that in days past the ranch was where the stagecoach stopped on the way from San Diego to Temecula.
Remnants of a post office are still to be seen. There are also ruins of a winery on one side of a building and a jail where drunks were kept on the other.
“My husband fought hard to keep Guejito in its natural state. He could never see how anyone would want to change such a paradise and he used all his connections to keep it so.”
The $100,000 gift from the Coates family will be placed in an endowment fund in which the museum will use only the interest to underwrite the operations (insurance, rent, etc.) of the museum. The principal will remain untouched.
There has beEn considerable speculation as to whether the Rodney Company, the holding company for the property, has plans to develop the huge estate.
Land use attorneys have been working with the County’s GP2020 process, which led many to speculate that the property would be developed.
However, Hank Rupp, general counsel to the Coates family, clarified this issue Thursday.
“If you don’t participate in the process, the County will decide for you what your land will be used for,” he said. Getting a land use designation through GP2020 will help preserve the value of the property, he said.
The property is nearly pristine, and home to the rare Englemann oak, Least Bell’s Vireo, golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, black panthers and mountain lions.
In fact, at a later exclusive luncheon held for museum supporters, friends of the family and the press, guests were warned, “If you stop along the road, don’t park under a tree and get out. Mountain lions have been spotted.”
Benjamin Coates, who died Dec. 7, 2004, owned the Rancho Guejito for almost 30 years.
Coates was a member of an historic American family in Pennsylvania when William Penn was named governor there almost 400 years ago.
He was also related to the primary founder of the First National Bank during the administration of President Andrew Jackson in the 1840s. He was also related by marriage to Cyrus Vance, secretary of state under Pres. Jimmy Carter.
The Rancho Guejito property was an original land grant from the King of Spain. It belonged to Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California and then passed to Jose Mario Orozco in 1845. From Orozco it became part of the United States after the Mexican-American War.
It had various owners before Coates bought it from a title insurance and trust company.
Mrs. Coates commented, “When he got to Guejito, his desire for any more possessions stopped and it was here that he found his deepest happiness and enjoyed his greatest health.”
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The museum is currently running an exhibit about Rancho Guejito.
Last week the old former location of Napa Auto Center was torn down by Bell Enterprises.
When next a structure goes up on the property, it may be a Major Market, part of a small shopping center that would be from 80,000-85,000 in total square footage.
“We tore down the building now because it was getting too much graffiti,” Steve Flynn, president of Bell Enterprises, told The Roadrunner on Friday.
He adds that he has a commitment from Dick London, owner of Major Market, to locate at the new center with a 30,000-32,000 sq. ft. market.
London was unavailable this week to comment on this story.
The new development is at least several years down the road, however, depending on when an expansion of the Woods Valley Ranch Wastewater Treatment Facility occurs.
Bell has been interested in participating in a community sewer since the ill-fated Valley Center Sewer Assessment District Project was pursued, but eventually jettisoned by the County in the 1990s.
Bell Enterprises has a letter from the VC Municipal Water District to the County describing the district’s plans to expand the plant to include the Bell project.
While the letter does not constitute a promise to serve the Bell development with sewer, it is the closest thing to it without actually obligating the water district.
On November 21, the water board approved starting the process of expanding the WVRWTF to serve properties, other than the Orchard Run SPA, in the Southern Node or South Village of Valley Center.
Sewer services could be ready for Bell and the adjacent Alti properties possibly by mid-July 2008 but no later than within five years, the letter says.
Flynn says that plans for the development will be put together in the next couple of months and then they will begin meeting with the county Dept. of Planning & Land Use.
“We’ve got a lot of support for a Major Market at that location,” said Flynn. “We want to build something convenient where people can stop when they are returning to Valley Center from their commute.”
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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