May 3, 2006 - Top Stories
Monday’s May Day walkout of illegal immigrants and their supporters across the country had its effect on local schools and businesses.
Most people noticed that the “hiring area” at the corner of Cole Grade & Valley Center Roads was largely empty for the first time in many years.
Many local contractors were forced to shut down or cut back drastically on work that day.
One such contractor, Steve Thorne of Thorne Builders reported, “about half of our jobs were shut down today. I work all over San Diego so it’s quite a few workers.”
School Supt. Lou Obermeyer reported that there were 265 absences at the high school. The average is 75.
There were 96 absences from the middle school. The average is 45.
Other sources, who asked not to be identified, reported that as many as a third of the ninth grade classes were empty on Monday.
No staff members, either teachers or classified, were absent from work.
Local groves were impacted. Al Stehly of Stehly Grove Management, told The Roadrunner on Monday, We aren’t doing anything today. I have no employees working today. They asked if they could do that and I said sure, but I told them it’s one hundred percent or none. They voted among themselves.”
No workers stayed home at the Valley Center Municipal Water District.
Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant commented, “Our workers are very dedicated and realize the importance of their jobs.”
Delfino Soto of Delfino’s fruit and vegetable stand said that he had to close yesterday because none of his workers were going to come in.
As a result none of the strawberries that are his big sellers were picked and he had nothing to put out. Also the lady who works at the stand did not show up.
Delfino called it “a big pain in the neck” because now there is not a lot of produce and what he had to choose from was more expensive due to the shortage.
Delfino himself chose to work that day, but on another ranch.
Not all businesses were crippled by workers not showing up.
A-1 Irrigation’s assistant manager Amy Mayerchik said that all six Hispanic workers scheduled to work that day showed up.
We were unable to get absenteeism figures from any of Valley Center’s largest employers, the casinos.
Valley Center’s Rodeo Queen 2006 who will succeed Cara Oulette, will be chosen at the pageant on May 13-14 at VC Community Hall and Aerie Park.
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The Valley Center Stampede Rodeo is an event sponsored by the VC Rodeo Committee and VC Optimist Club. It is held at Bates Nut Farm during Memorial Day Weekend and is unconnected with VC Western Days. Questions? Call 760-244-4646.
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Four candidates will vie for the crown, according to Crystal Damico, chairman of the rodeo queen pageant. They are Cassandra Durler, Jessica Simonsen, Kohlby Rockenmacher, and Alexis Boles.
Durler is a a student at San Pasqual High School. She is involved in the San Pasqual FFA and maintains a 3.83 grade point average.
She is also involved in barrel racing and trail riding and is a member of the Valley Center Vaqueros.
She enjoys horseback riding, raising animals for FFA, working on cars, ice skating, sign language and hanging out with her friends.
She hopes to attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for a career in agriculture and architecture.
Durler will be riding her 12-year-old quarterhorse named Kate.
Simonsen is a student at Orange Glen High School. She is involved in volleyball, softball and water polo and maintains a 3.5 grade point average.
She enjoys being a part of the Valley Center drill team, the Valley Center Vaqueros, gymkhana and high school rodeos.
She hopes to become a horse vet.
Rockenmacher is a student at the Escondido Charter High School.
She is involved in digital photography at school and maintains a 4.0 grade point average.
She has three Arabians and one quarterhorse that she rides at breed shows for trail riding.
Rockenmacher hopes to become an independent trainer specializing in youth and amateur riders.
She will be riding her 4-year-old quarterhorse Mason.
Boles is a second-entry for the contest. Last year she earned the title Second Princess.
She attends Palomar College.
A rider since the age of three, Boles loves rodeos and entered the rodeo queen competition because she loves the experience she gains from them. .
She enjoys surfing and photography and hopes to have a career in surfing photography so that she can incorporate two of her hobbies and have the best of both worlds.
Boles will be riding Ivy, her 16-year-old quarterhorse mare.
The candidates will give speeches and have interviews on Friday May 13, 6:30 p.m. at VC Community Center. Saturday, May 14 beginning at 11 a.m. at Aerie park they will do horsemanship patterns and have a barbeque.
The winner will be announced the same day. In addition to an awards ceremony the new queen will be honored at the Valley Center Stampede Rodeo and the Western Days Parade.
The Rodeo Queen will be involved with many community events and activities to support community service and represent the horsemanship and grace that the young women of Valley Center have long demonstrated.
At age 55, after a life that has given him 56 broken bones and 13 concussions, Kim Breski will graduate from Cal State San Marcos with a degree in human development.
Not only graduate, but give a commencement speech at the graduation ceremonies on May 13.
When he called to see if The Roadrunner might be interested in doing a story about him, Breski was frank about his goal.
“I’m hoping that someone will read about me and offer me a job,” he said.
His IS a pretty inspirational story. After an “adventuresome life” that has included working at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, where he did vibration tests for things like the Space Telescope, a stint as a world class arm wrestler, time spent as a paramedic and a career doing special effects for the movies, he is in chronic pain from head injuries and broken bones.
The last injuries he got in 1996 when his truck was flipped over by 100 mph winds while on a trip to the mountains.
“When I get up in the morning I look like ancient times,” he says. He smiles and adds, “My hobbies helped ruin my body.”
He actually spent several years being disabled before deciding to go to college. Normally about 250 pounds, he had ballooned up to 455.
“I was sitting there doing nothing but watching TV and eating and getting fat,” he recalls.
He saw an ad in the paper for a program for disabled golfers. He joined and became the first graduate from the program.
“The pilot light got relit,” he recalls. “I called Social Security and asked what I could do to go back to work.”
They directed him to contact California State Rehab. In short order he signed up to take classes at Palomar College. He started there five years ago and eventually transferred to CSUSM.
A disability not related to his formerly strenuous lifestyle is his almost total deafness.
In class he needs a stenographer to take down the professor’s lecture and make transcripts.
Because of the broken bones in his hands, his wife, Nicolette, who is also in college, types his term papers.
She also helped him write his speech. “I told her that if she wrote the speech I would give it,” he said.
After he started college he began to lose weight.
“What I did was swim and walk and quit eating and go to class,” he recalled.
Being so much older than the other students he felt out of place his first semester at Cal State San Marcos. Then he walked into Professor Loni Berry’s Caribbean Carnival Class.
“The younger students made me feel welcome not only in the classroom, but also on campus. they made me feel like I was an equal, one of them, and I was honored to be the King of Carnival that year.”
He and Nicolette have lived in VC on the Rincon Reservation for six years. Five years of that he has been in college.
He proudly reports that this is Nicolette’s third year on the National Dean’s list and she was just awarded a Edith Webster Scholarship. Attending Palomar, she wants to get her master’s degree in library science. She maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA. “She’s the intelligent one in the family,” he said.
“Not me! If I like the class I have to bust my butt to get an A!”
College is challenging, but Breski and his wife have spent their lives doing things that normal people would not.
For example, in 1996 they were the first couple tested to fly into space “on a vacation” on the Delta Clipper, a spaceship that was in the running to replace the Space Shuttle.
They’ve also had a lot of misfortunes. “But we wipe off the dirt and keep going,” he said.
He was born in Rochester, Minn. Breski’s parents moved to Manhattan Beach when he was six months old. He has lived in Southern California ever since.
He and Nicolette met in 1980 and married soon after.
Breski doesn’t intend to stop with one degree. He eventually wants to get master’s and then a doctorate. He wants to be a counselor and to teach.
“I found that college students are more to my liking to help counsel,” he says.
As part of getting his human development degree he did 90 hours at Disabled Students Services at Palomar.
“It was great to go back to giving back. That’s where I found that I loved working with college age students. It keeps me young. I have found out that most of my friends are 30 years or younger than me.”
He has a tendency to ask questions a lot during class. Once he asked a professor if that was a problem.
“I hope the young students don’t think I’m some old fart running his mouth,” he told the professor.
“No,” replied the professor, “ I’ve had a lot of the younger kids say that you put the questions in layman’s terms, which then forces me to put the answers in layman’s terms.”
In his commencement speech Breski will talk about the challenges that he has faced in getting his degree.
One paragraph from the speech reads: “During these past five years I have conquered homelessness, I have battled against mind-freezing financial losses, I have survived one major and six minor fires that threatened my home, my life and my family and I have overcome the bitter winds that tore the roof off of my house twice.”
He also gives a lot of credit to his wife: Nicolette, I challenge you to stand with me for the rest of time, and know that we will conquer any and all mountains that we stand before.”
For many years the Yuima Municipal Water District in Pauma Valley has operated under the radar, quietly delivering to a mainly agricultural clientele.
A lot of its water comes from wells or the San Luis Rey River. So it hasn’t been as subject to the ups and downs, occasional shortages and political battles associated with imported water from Northern California and the Colorado River, as other districts.
Some of its water IS imported, however. It is delivered through a connection to a pipeline within the neighboring Valley Center Municipal Water District. An eight mile long pipeline then brings the water to Yuima.
Because of court decisions giving a greater share of San Luis Rey River water to the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority, Yuima will have to find a larger share of its water from the San Diego County Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District, the big agency that supplies imported water to most of Southern California.
Because of this changing waterscape, for the past two years the Yuima district has been working on a project to bring imported water to the district by tapping the Met’s pipeline just inside Rainbow Water District, east of Rice Canyon Road.
The advantage of this northern route over the existing VC connection is that it would gravity feed the water, possibly saving up to $100/acre foot according to Linden Burzell, general manager of the district.
Yuima would be served by the same pipeline, but would have its own connection.
The 13 mile pipeline will start at San Diego Aqueduct pipelines 1 &2 off Rice Canyon Rd., near Pala. This connection is just inside the Rainbow Municipal Water District.
The proposed pipeline will run through private land and the Pala Reservation (for five miles) and end up at the entrance to the Pauma Valley Country Club.
The diameter of the pipeline at the connection near Pala would be from 39 to 42 inches wide depending on who will eventually want service off it.
By time it gets to the district it would be about 24 inches in diameter, says Burzell.
This project is part of Yuima’s five year master plan adopted in 2005. It would cost $20 million. Some of that could come from the savings in imported water, said Burzell.
But exactly how to fund it is still “up in the air,” he said.
The San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority (which serves the Pala, Pauma, Rincon, San Pasqual and La Jolla reservations) will pay for some of it because it will also use the pipeline to get some of the water that it has coming to it as a result of its lawsuits with the federal government. The pipeline will cost less to build than if two separate pipelines are built.
For several months the Yuima district had expressed an interest in being involved with a project call Rancho Luna Miel that would build 1,000 units on 400 plus acres near the intersection of Hwy 76 & I-15. The project is proposed by Pardee Homes.
This is proposed on land formerly owned by Tom Warner. The land was formerly used to raise thoroughbreds.
Several other districts are interested in providing water to this project, including Valley Center Municipal Water District, Rainbow Municipal Water District and the tiny San Luis Rey Municipal Water District.
For several months LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) has held meetings to discuss whose district this project should be served by.
Currently the land in question isn’t part of the San Diego County Water Authority, and would have to be annexed before any of the competing water districts would be allowed to serve it.
Yuima was interested because serving the development would help fund its own pipeline project.
Recently it was determined that Yuima will be removed from consideration because it is not contiguous to the land that would be served.
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The Yuima Municipal Water District board meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month at 2 p.m. at the district office. The office is located at 34928 Valley Center Rd., Pauma Valley. The mailing address is POB 177, Pauma Valley, CA 92061.
The board includes President Mike Fitzsimmons, Vice President Doug Anderson, and directors Bill Knutson, George Stockton and John Lyttle.
The public is invited to these meetings.
Jim Corona, Sr., a member of Western Fire/Rescue, was awarded a ribbon and plaque by VC Fire Chief Kevin O’Leary for his actions in the Paradise fire, October 26, 2003. The award was given at the April meeting of the VC Fire Protection District board.
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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