December 6, 2006 - Top Stories
Seventeen telephone poles along Valley Center Road went down in succession Sunday morning, hitting two cars and shutting the road between Mac Tan and Vesper to through traffic until Tuesday.
Santa Ana winds caused the poles to go down.
Yet, miraculously, no one was hurt.
Poles were not back in service until Tuesday.
Gusts of wind between 30–40 mph caused the poles to go over around 8:41 a.m. Sunday according to CDF Capt. Saul Villagomez.
Some poles snapped, which caused a domino effect for a total of 17 poles.
“It was pretty spectacular!” said the captain.
One of the cars that the poles landed on was a silver-colored Honda Civic, whose driver was a 21–year old woman (no name was provided to the paper).
Although her car was smashed down the middle, she was missed entirely.
A second car, driven by a VC firefighter from Station 73 on his way home from work, also resulted in no injury.
Reserve firefighter Justin Schrey, a Los Angeles native, told The Roadrunner: “I was driving and I saw in front of me the wires drooped down, and I thought it was odd. The next thing the black wire hit my windshield and cracked it. The pole landed in front of me. I think only two poles fell in front of me, I swerved out of the way of the second pole.”
He got out of the car and saw that the north side of the westbound lanes were blocked.
His windshield was broken out, but he was uninjured.
Units responded from Station 72 on Lilac and Station 73 on North Lake Wohlford Road. So did California Highway Patrol, County Dept. of Public Works, SDG&E and AT&T.
All of the poles belonged to the phone company.
On the same day, about two hours later firefighters also responded to downed lines at Villa Sierra & Villa Sierra Way. That occurred at 10:06 a.m.
According to Brian Brokowski of AT&T, getting the poles back in service was a tricky business since they had to do it in a way that evenly distributed the weight down the line.
Twelve domestic lines were out of service for awhile due to the accident.
Valley View Casino marked the opening of its 1,200 space parking garage Wednesday with a small ceremony that included a ribbon cutting.
Then, several cars that had already been waiting in line were allowed to be the first to park.
The ceremony was attended by a couple of hundred tribal dignitaries and casino employees who first were treated to breakfast at the buffet.
Joe Navarro, CEO/president of the San Pasqual Casino Development Group, spoke briefly, stressing that the opening of the garage is just the first step in an overall enlargement of the facility.
His comments are below:
“Hello and welcome to all of you. Thank you for joining us here today. Most of you know me, I’m Joe Navarro, the President and CEO of the San Pasqual Casino Development Group. Today is a very special day for the San Pasqual tribe and Valley View casino team members and guests, as well as the community and residents of Valley Center.
“The opening of our garage today, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday is very fitting as we have much to be thankful for. This garage represents the first of several milestones in the development of what we believe will be a premiere gaming and dining destination.
“What began as plans on paper is finally here in concrete and steel, and it is only the beginning of what is going to be a great achievement for both the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians and Valley View Casino.
“On behalf of the entire board of directors of the San Pasqual Development Group, I would like to thank all the people that made this project possible, for without the efforts of our amazing team, none of this could have happened.
“Our thanks go out to the tribal members of San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, the Tribal Business Committee, San Pasqual Gaming Commission, and our Valley View Casino management and team members.
“We also want to thank the Bomel Construction Company who built this beautiful garage, the members of the media that are here with us today, and especially Valley View Casino’s guests and the residents of Valley Center, who have all been so patient and supportive throughout our expansion process. Without them, none of this could be possible.
“We are very excited about this new garage, but the excitement certainly doesn’t stop here! We have so much in store for Valley View in the coming months. In the spring of 2007 we will open our beautiful new entrance, new gaming space, our new steakhouse and steakhouse lounge, our new non-smoking bar and non-smoking gaming floor, our new high-limit gaming floor, and our new VIP lounge. In the fall of 2007 we will open four additional new dining venues, including our buffet, as well as additional gaming space and our new entertainment lounge.
“As you can see, there’s a lot more fun on the way for Valley View—and it all starts here, with this garage! Thank you all again for coming. And as you can see, there are cars waiting to get in, so let’s open this garage up for business!”
The new parking garage is the first milestone of Valley View Casino's $114 million expansion project which includes adding over 60,000 square feet of increased gaming and dining space, along with five new restaurants, three new bars, a special events center and increased slots and table games.
The first phase of the casino's expansion, including a new steakhouse and lounge and special events center is scheduled for a grand opening in spring 2007.
The remainder of the expansion is scheduled for completion in fall of 2007.
San Diego County Animal Services will forward its report on the Nov. 9 mauling of a Valley Center veterinarian to the District Attorney sometime this week.
The report, says John Carlson, regional director of County Animal Services, will not include a recommendation.
“We’re going to submit our case to the DA’s office,” said Carlson. “We want them to look it over to make the determination as to the appropriateness of any criminal charges. It won’t have a recommendation. It will be a discussion. My experience from recommendations is that they are ignored. They look at it to see if it’s a valid case and that’s all.”
Carlson would not speculate on whether the DA would file criminal charges in the case.
“I believe that there were several violations of county ordinances at the very least. As to whether or not it might go beyond local ordinances, I prefer not to speculate,” said Carlson.
The attack against Dr. Nancy Matthews occurred near Incredible Lane & Sierra Rojo in the afternoon of Nov. 9, when she was walking with her two small boys.
She was attacked by two boxer dogs who were loose from their fenced enclosure. She suffered 50 bites and had to undergo surgery to reattach her ear.
Pedro Torres, owner of the dogs, was cited for two counts of a dog being at large, two counts of violating the public protection from dogs ordinance and one count of violating the potentially dangerous dog ordinance. All are misdemeanors.
“We will let the D.A. take it from here,” said Carlson. “Sometimes they say they need more investigation. We will provide them with whatever they need.”
Kathleen Camp, the Valley Center attorney representing Dr. Matthews, told The Roadrunner: “The Matthewses are confident that the legal system’s involvement will help raise awareness that people are responsible, morally and legally, for the actions of their dogs so that this type of attack can be avoided in the future.”
Three school board members, one of them new, will be sworn in at the regular December meeting, Thursday.
Dr. Doug Dechairo, newly elected, Lori Johnson, reelected and Dr. Henry Van Wyk, reelected, will take the oath of office at the beginning of the meeting.
Later the board will be presented with a first draft of a policy that would allow students in the independent study program to participate in extracurricular and co-curricular activities at the middle school and high school. The only extracurricular activity excepted will be high school athletics.
This is an information item only and the board won’t vote on the proposed policy at this meeting. However, there will be discussion.
The board will also consider approving the California Health Science Capacity Building Project Establishment Grant Application for $150,000.
This money, if granted, would be used to plan curriculum and staff development to start implementing a health science career path at the district.
The board will also be asked to consider altering the district calendar for next year so that staff would take off the entire week of the Thanksgiving holiday, rather than the traditional Thursday and Friday.
To keep the same number of school days classes would begin one day earlier (next year’s leap year would provide another day) and end a day later.
The calendar would be adopted as a pilot program only.
The public portion of the meeting begins at 5:30 p.m., when the board will be sworn in. They will then go into closed session at 5:50 p.m. The public meeting will resume at 6:30 p.m.
The meeting will be held at the VCHS library (media center). The public is invited.
Friday is the deadline to bring in wrapped toys and gifts for the Roadrunner Giving Tree.
This year the school district provided us with the ages of boys and girls who need some Holiday cheer because of their economic condition.
The community has stepped up to the plate, taking tags with the ages and sexes of children. The Roadrunner office is starting to fill up with the wrapped gifts that we hope will brighten the lives of these children.
Hometown residents are welcome to assist by stopping by to get information to purchase a holiday gift for one of the children. But we need for you to do it quickly!
We need all gifts wrapped and returned before Dec. 8 so we can be sure they are delivered before Christmas.
Call The Roadrunner staff at 749-1112 with any questions.
The Valley Center Municipal Water District’s 12-day shutdown was scheduled to be over on Wednesday, Dec. 6.
The district made it through the shutdown with very few problems.
“The shutdown is going well,” commented Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant on Monday. “We are getting excellent cooperation from our ag and domestic customers and are able to let some hardship cases do limited watering.
“We have about 60% of storage capacity at this time.
“It looks like the system will be back full tilt Wednesday. We will be advising our customers when they can resume normal water use,” he said.
For the man or woman who has everything, give a gift that will keep on giving for many years to come.
You can put the name of a loved one on the back of one of the seats in the Maxine Theater.
It will be a gift that will be appreciated for many years to come, and it will help to keep the theater fiscally solvent.
The seats cost $500 to put a name on a metal plaque on the back. And unlike iPods and Play Stations and other gifts that everyone is falling all over themselves to get this year, there’s plenty of seats left.
According to Asst. Supt. Sarah Clayton, there are 350 seats left.
If interested, call the school district office at 749-0464. But if you want to arrange the gift for Christmas, remember that the district office is closed from Dec. 19–Jan. 1.
The sign at the high school was replaced on Dec 1. Mark Armstrong, electrician, Terry Patton, Accurate Backhoe and Scott Kissinger, VCPUSD maintenance, worked together to get it installed. The previous marquee was damaged by lightning.
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
Copyright © 2006, Palomar Community Newspapers, dba Valley Roadrunner. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Valley Roadrunner.