March 28, 2007 - Top Stories
Saturday’s 9th annual Jaguar Auction at the VCHS gym raised more than $70,000, organizers say.
This was the 9th year the auction has been hosted by the VCHS Foundation.
The $70,000 raised will go to the various VCHS clubs and activities that participated in the auction.
Over 650 attended the auction; enjoying the food, fun and festivities. The event included both a live and silent auction featuring over 700 items up for bid.
The MC for the evening was Jim Dorschel and the auctioneer was Larry White.
Lisa Francis won $520 in the 52-card draw. The winner of the drawing for the flat screen TV was Marilyn Winebarger.
A spokesman for the Foundation told The Roadrunner: “The VCHS Foundation would like to thank all of the volunteers that worked on the auction as well as the businesses and individuals who very generously donated items for auction.”
After 30 years of fans saying “Why don’t you do an album?” Larry Read, who did his first performance on stage at age 8, has produced a high quality CD with 17 songs that he wrote and performed, entitled Legacy.
The album, released this week, is available, either as a download, or as a CD at http://cdbaby.com/cd/larryread. They have it in stock and it can ship in 24-hours.
The album is called Legacy, “Because I wanted the leave something behind,” says Read, a longtime area resident, and nine-year owner of Oak Knoll Campground. “I thought Legacy was better than Nuts and Chews, which might have been appropriate too, since it’s a sampler.”
It’s true. As you play the selections you’ll never know whether you’ll find folk rock, rock, country rock or several other adult contemporary styles. “I wanted people to see that I don’t just write in one vein,” he says.
The music is his best material from the past 30 years. He’s written hundreds of songs and has been a professional musician since he was a teenager. A native of San Marcos, he started playing professionally at age 18. He took the songs that he’s gotten the best reaction to and included them.
You’ll recognize Read if you’ve sat or stood along the side of Valley Center Road for the Western Days parade.
Read, who owns his own fire engine, and sound system, each year drives by singing Proud to be an American, a rendition that usually brings the crowd to its feet.
“The first time I did that it was a very emotional experience,” he said. “Guys in wheel chairs were standing up to salute, but what they didn’t know was that, for me, it was all about them. I was in tears to where I had a hard time finishing the song.”
Read writes and sings about the things that involve him emotionally. The 17 songs and 74 minutes are an eclectic collection in various styles and genres.
Read plays most of the instruments, so it’s Larry Read accompanied by Larry Read in many of the songs.
He writes and sings about life and life’s experiences. “I take responsibility for its contents,” he says. “ I believe that music is a tool that can used to help or hinder mankind. I try to enlighten people using music rather than tear it down.”
He’s very passionate about “saving the earth,” and has expressed that in his song It’s Time, whose lyrics very straightforwardly call for taking action in an Al Gore mode:
It’s time to save our planet
It's time to heal our world
It's time to stop the damage
To our oceans and our shores
To our children's children
We must somehow give
A planet that is whole
On which they can live
That song is featured as the theme music for the Web site: www.saveourgreenplanet.org/
In fact, if you type Larry Read on Google, you’ll find him and his music popping up on a number of “dot coms.”
The United Kingdom-based Center for Political Songs just contacted him and said they are going to put his song up on their Web site.
“I’m getting global!” he says with satisfaction. “Not too bad for only a couple of weeks. The Internet allows a lot of good things to happen.”
Another popular song is Your Family America, which he wrote in support of the troops in Iraq.
Sarah’s Song, is a song about a father talking to his daughter just before her wedding. It was written for his real life daughter, Sarah.
Outsourced is a song about a guy who has lost his job to the global economy, done in sort of a Johnny Paycheck style.
Chasing Rainbows, is a song about Read’s career and life.
So why did he wait so long to do an album?
“Fear and I was waiting for some big company to discover me. So I decided to do it for myself.”
It required a $30,000 investment in himself to build the studio at Oak Knoll and to shoulder the costs of producing the first 2,000 albums.
“There’s a lot more to this than burning it on your computer. You either have to hire a studio or build your own,” said Read. Fortunately, in another life he was a recording engineer.
Locally you can buy Legacy at the Palomar Mountain General Store, Lazy H (where on Saturday nights he entertains as a strolling troubadour), Lake Henshaw Grill, A-1 Irrigation and Jag’s Grill & Spirits.
Eventually you will be able to download the individual songs from Napster, iTunes and Rhapsody.com or buy it in any music store.
You can preview the individual songs by visiting www.larryread.com.
Read will be doing the music for the April 21 A-1 Irrigation Customer Appreciation Day. He will have copies of his album and will be happy to autograph them.
He will also make an appearance at the April 1 Art & Book Festival in Fallbrook’s Jackson Square.
VC Fire District board at its March meeting put in motion machinery to create a Mello Roos funding district for undeveloped commercial and residential land in VC.
Land that has already been built on WOULD NOT be affected.
Directors acted on a recommendation of SCI Consulting Group, with which it contracted for a study on how the district could create new revenue sources
The resolution passed would move towards creating a district-wide Community Facilities District and ask the County to make participating in this district a requirement before discretionary permits are issued.
As land is built on, commercial property would be taxed an additional $232.85 a year. Residential property would be taxed an additional $393.80 a year from single family residential, $351.24 for condominiums and $278.16 for multi-family units.
Normally such permits are issued for lot splits of four parcels or more. However, the district will ask that the County make it a requirement for any building permit.
The County is the entity that can impose building conditions, so any project that it has the ability the require conditions on could conceivably obtain this requirement.
“Bottom line is if we have a one hundred homes going in we would need to collect it, but it would be just as important with 100 separate homes,” commented board Pres. Mel Schuler. “These onesies and twosies add up. That’s why it’s important to look at and see if it’s permissible.”
The new taxing structure would address the fact that 6,000 new people are expected in Valley Center by 2022, which would be an average of about new 135 homes/year.
This would require an additional fire station staffed 24/7 with three fulltime firefighters and one reserve firefighter.
Gerald Steyn of SCI said their figures show that most other cities charge fees that are much higher than this.
Director Dan Thornton, who has worked with SCI, noted that the district won't significantly benefit from the fees for several years.
“This is a very long term and slow process but very necessary as the community of VC grows,” he said. “We probably should have done this ten years ago to ride the wave of development that we had.”
“This by itself does not solve our financial problems, it doesn’t mean that we don’t need additional assets,” added Schuler.
SCI calculates that there are 1,000 vacant lots in the district, some are undevelopable. This new tax would not apply to them because they were approved prior to the tax being adopted.
Valley Center Road will be closed on Monday, April 2 from 7 a.m.–5 p.m. in order for the County to perform emergency repairs to the existing pavement on Valley Center Road, south of Ridge Ranch Road.
Motorists will be detoured through Lake Wohlford Road and Woods Valley Road.
Traffic delays can be expected so please allow yourself additional time when traveling through the construction area.
Blasting Cancelled
The Valley Center road blasting that had been scheduled for this week has been cancelled.
There will be no blasting on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of this week.
For questions or concerns, please call the Project Hotline at (619) 232-2640.
If your dancing shoes have dust on them, now you’ve got an occasion to get them shined.
The VC Kiwanis Club will hold its first ever “Spring Fling” dance April 14, 6:30 p.m. at St. Stephen Catholic Church.
This will be the Kiwanis Club’s main fund-raiser for the year, replacing the Gala that used to be held in December.
The price is $50 per person.
Live music will be provided by the Beck Jazz Quartet. Dinner will be catered by Julie Stroh. Attendees will have a chance to win a seven day Holland America Cruise.
There will be a Chinese Auction. The way a Chinese auction works is that you buy as many tickets as you want and put as many tickets as you wish for particular items that you are interested in. Drawings are then held for the items. The auction combines “auction” with “chance.”
Tickets are available at Coldwell Banker, Video Playhouse, the Desert Rose and from any Kiwanis Club member.
Questions? Call Bill Dixon at 749-8245 or Tom Williams at 749-7640.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet
The above line from Hamlet, is considered proof by some that aliens have long visited this planet, this nation, this California, this San Diego, this Valley Center!
The Sheriff’s deputy plays his flashlight around the dim green enclosure, until the beam alights on the pile of an unidentified fabric, metallic objects and something that could be glass, or might be something else.
The deputy’s free hand never strays far from the leather holster that contains his service revolver.
One of the objects, that in other circumstances might be described as a spoon, does have an elongated concave shape. Another has the familiar saucer shape so well known to those who watched the Saturday features in the 1950s.
Could this saucer shape be proof that aliens visited this empty house last week?
Another shape sends shivers up the spines of those who look upon it. Could those be fingers and an opposable thumb?
Artifacts of alien visitors? Who can say?
Deputy Shrumpter (not his real name), points his light at another haphazard heap that is part of the find on Cole Grade Road, near the high school, that was identified as possibly containing alien artifacts.
“Don’t that beat all?” exclaims the deputy with wonder. “Somebody called us about it after they said they saw strange lights in the sky.”
“Yeah,” adds another deputy, Farhsaskler (not his real name). “They also heard this deep thump, thump, thump, thumping!”
They reported that the lights had come from the direction of the desert.
A desert where nothing thrives except Gila monsters, sidewinders, scorpions, and an occasional casino.
“Somebody else reported a really strong odor at the corner of Paradise Mountain Road and North Lake Wohlford Road,” added Shrumpter (not his real name).
“They sure had us hopping last night. They said they thought it was a cross between a chicken and a man. It was cackling all night.”
Could the lights at the Valley View Casino, just a few miles away, form a pattern of landing lights for an alien mothership? Or is it merely something designed to attract gamblers?
I asked if they had any reports of sheep that are 15% human, or animal psychics that are able to tell which cans of pet food are tainted with rat poison.
“Well, yeah!” admits Farhsaskler (not his real name). “We had one of those last night. And sure as my middle name is Joe (not his real middle name) that one was authentic!”
“Yeah, but that was the same guy who reported crop circles on the Woods Valley Golf Course, and it turned out to be that some kid got ahold of a lawn mower and was doin’ wheelies.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s not psychic!” insists Farhsaskler (not his real name).
Could this be the vestiges of an alien visitation?
“We’re expecting to get a phone call from George Noory any time now,” says Shrumpter (not his real name).
Because The Roadrunner even follows up on reports of Bengal tigers from our readers, we decided that we owed it to them to get to the bottom of what may be a major government cover-up.
The Roadrunner called Palomar Observatory this week to ask about the strange lights that have been seen about 40 degrees north of the ecliptic.
“Oh, you mean the light that is as bright as a helicopter?”
Yes, we say.
“And it’s hovering over Escondido city? And not moving?”
Yes, we say.
“Well, that’s Venus.”
“But what about alien sightings?”
“It’s Venus.”
“But we’ve been told that this could be the harbinger of a visitation of aliens.”
Click.
We visit a group of patriotic Americans who are “Watching the Skies” above their mobile home park. Comfortably seated in lawn chairs, they are armed with the proper caliber artillery, just in case they encounter any aliens.
“Well, they already have Minutemen, and they do their thing, and we don’t interfere with them. We’re the ‘Three-Minute’ men, and we are, well, a little more hard-boiled,” says one of the sentinels. “If they think they are going to try that crop circle nonsense on our golf course, they’re nuts. Let ‘em go mess with Pauma Valley Country Club if they want to. We’ll give ‘em a hole in one, make no mistake!”
What’s this? I ask a deputy as we uncover another cache of mysterious objects.
I hear one of the unidentified deputies (not his real name) cackle, “Little green cards! Hee! Hee!”
Finally, after the deputies have finished their search, the sergeant from the Valley Center substation, name of Lt. Art Bell (not his real name) arrives.
“Don’t you guys think you’ve been goldbricking here long enough?” he snaps. He points at the ball cap, grimy work gloves, handkerchief, pie plate with vestiges of apple pie (not the dessert’s actual name) and plastic eating utensils.
“What’s the big deal? These people cross the border all the time.”
April Fool!
Roadrunner Editor David Ross announced this week that there will be no April Fool article this year.
“We at The Roadrunner have decided that with the world threatened by a number of global catastrophes, ranging from global warming to tsunamis in Arizona, that no one will ever take us seriously if we keep making up stupid, eighth grade level jokes.”
He added, “Frankly, we think that the people who look forward to these things are kind of sophomoric. Also, after all these years of pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, if not their legs, no one is going to be gullible enough to fall for another one of these things again. Nobody is that dumb, and it’s kind of moronic of us to think that people are that simple!
“Also, we are getting tired of people asking us, a month, or two weeks ahead of time, ‘What’s the April Fool’s story going to be?’
“Well, I DON’T KNOW and I don’t care. Don’t you people realize that we’re journalists? We’re serious people. We have a mission, and that’s to make our readers interested in things that they don’t actually care about.
“We don’t have time to give you chuckles! Get A LIFE!”
April fool.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 © 2007, 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.