July 19, 2006 - Top Stories
Several school administrative staff changes were announced this week by Supt. Lou Obermeyer.
High School Principal Lucy Haines has been hired by the Carlsbad Unified School District to be Director of Curriculum and Instruction. She submitted her resignation last week.
Mrs. Haines has had a long career in Valley Center, where she has been principal at the Lower Elementary School, and the middle and high schools. She joined the school district 16 years ago. Mrs. Haines has also served as director of special projects at the district. She has been in education for 24 years and previously was in the Fallbrook, Santee and San Marcos districts.
Anne Staffieri has been named to be principal of the Upper Elementary.
Bryan Farmer has been named principal of Oak Glen High School.
Farmer has been serving as assistant principal at the middle school and had been named to be assistant principal at the high school for the upcoming year when this change was announced.
From Pennsylvania originally, Farmer served in the U.S. Army 1992-95 and went to college on the G.I. Bill. He taught three years in Valencia and Carlsbad before being tagged for the job at the middle school. At Aviara Oaks Middle School in Carlsbad, he was the eighth grade English and P.E. teacher and served as acting administrator in the absence of the principal and vice principal. He also coached surfing.
Staffieri was initially hired in 1999 to be a science and biology teacher at Valley Center High School. She was born and raised in Del Mar and the North County. She graduated from Torrey Pines High School (where she later taught for one year). She earned a BS in biology from Brigham Young University and a master’s in education from Cal State San Marcos. She was one of the first group of 15 future teachers to graduate from that school’s education program. She was actively involved in San Pasqual High School, usually as a science teacher, except for one semester teaching bilingual education.
A longtime former board member and former volunteer fire chief has been appointed to fill a vacancy on the VC Fire Protection District board.
Bill Palmer, a 32-year resident, and founding member of the VC Volunteer Fire Dept. in 1975, was appointed Thursday night to fill the vacancy created when Stan Johnson resigned two months ago.
However, the voters will have final say on that seat, and on all four other seats on the board. This is an unusual year, where, because two seats were filled by appointment, all five seats will be up for election.
Directors Mel Schuler, Mike Pacheco and Dan Thornton will be eligible to run for four-year terms. Weaver Simonsen and Palmer, who were both appointed to their seats, will be running for two-year terms, a requirement of state law. Mel, Mike and Dan will be running for a four-year term.
Simonsen and Palmer, if victorious, will serve a two-year term and will have to run again in 2008. In 2008 the term will then revert back to its original four years, according to Steve Mahady, district administrator.
When serving in the volunteer fire department that protected VC before the creation of the current fire district, Palmer worked his way up from fireman to engineer to Captain to Assistant Chief and then to Chief. He was volunteer chief for over six years until 1982, when the fire protection district was created. He served on the fire board from 1982-96.
Palmer is a locomotive mechanic and inspector, who once was in charge of the miniature train set owned by Glen Bell when Bell Gardens was open. He is currently working as chief mechanical officer at the San Diego Railroad Museum in Campo.
Other candidates for the position were Oliver Smith, an electrical engineer who serves on the VC planning group; M. Gloria Ashworth, who spent 14 years with the San Diego Sheriff’s Dept. and Ron Gibson, who turned out not to be a resident of the district.
Bill Hutchings has been re-elected President of the Valley Center History Museum Board of Directors. The organization is an all-volunteer group which operates the museum and oversees the local Historical Society.
Hutchings, whose family has been active in local farming and agriculture for nearly six decades, has long been involved in community activities and has served on many boards of directors.
Also re-elected to new terms were Vice President Sarah clayton, assistant superintendent of the Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District; Treasurer Nicky Lovejoy, vice president and manager of California Bank & Trust; and Secretary Joyce Johnson, who recently retired as general manager of the Valley Center Parks & Recreation District.
The VC Fire Protection District board Thursday agreed to sit down on Aug. 3 and negotiate with the County on how funds voted for the district by the Board of Supervisors will be spent.
Ralph Steinhoff, fire services coordinator for the County’s Dept. of Planning & Land Use, made a short presentation at Thursday’s meeting. He talked a little of the history of how the Board of Supervisors came to vote extra funds for several fire districts and volunteer departments, including Valley Center’s.
Last year the board authorized $5 million a year to assist in improving fire districts in the unincorporated areas. The board’s most recent action authorizes Phase II of that aid, which is to add $3.5 million/year for three years. The main purpose would be to fund an additional full-time CDF firefighter for each engine company in the district. He noted that in addition to VC the County is working with Pine Valley, Deer Springs, Cuyamaca and three volunteer fire departments.
Steinhoff asked for a closed session meeting with fire directors to discuss the details of the funding as it relates to contracting for the extra firefighters with California Dept. of Forestry & Fire Protection (CDF).
“Our goal is to help improve ISO ratings and service to the unincorporated county,” Stein-hoff told the board.
ISO ratings are assigned to districts by an insurance rating agency. The better the ISO rating, the lower home insurance rates are in the district.
The County also proposes to assist with the “Amador Plan” agreement that Valley Center had at one time with CDF to provide full-time staffing of CDF stations in the district. Normally CDF staffs its stations during fire season.
However, director Weaver Simonsen pointed out that the reason VCFPD does not contract for CDF to staff its stations year-round this year is that it was advised last year by CDF that it would be doing that anyway.
“We did that with CDF’s advice,” said Simonsen. “We didn’t say that we didn’t have the money to do it.”
The exact terms and conditions of the County funding will be decided at the Aug. 3 closed session meeting.
Steinhoff said that the County will sign an agreement with the district, “so that you know that the County is serious.” This would give VCFPD the ability to go to CDF and open negotiations with them.
As to exactly what the money could be used for, Steinhoff said, “It is very important for us to maintain staffing. The rest of the questions can be answered during the negotiations,” he said.
The crisis of Palomar Mountain School’s enrollment may have been solved, at least for this year.
The one-room mountain school will open in the fall with 11 students, VC-P school Supt. Lou Obermeyer told The Roadrunner this week.
That’s close to the minimum number that the school district needs to keep the school open beyond the one year grace period that it granted residents earlier this year when they said they could raise enrollment, or raise extra money to keep the school open.
In May residents of the Mountain and the district reached an accommodation whereby the one room schoolhouse would stay open as a traditional school for another year and residents would raise $25,000 to help defray expenses.
The residents also agreed to look for solutions for the problem of fluctuating enrollment.
Because enrollment had fallen so that six students were expected next fall, the district has been looking at closing the school or reducing classes to half time to save money.
The school district’s Olivia Lescheck, Administrator in Charge of Special Projects, is also working with State Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth office to push forward a bill that would once more qualify Palomar Mountain School for “Necessary Small Schools Funding.”
Such a bill was passed several years ago but then-Gov. Gray Davis vetoed it.
The Valley Roadrunner
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