At the June meeting the VC-P school board voted to hire a consultant to put on five community forums starting in the fall.
The district will pay consultant Carolyn Perino $6,000 to conduct the forums and present the board with the information gathered.
“One of our board goals approved in March was to increase communications,” noted Supt. Lou Obermeyer at the meeting.
Increasing communications was also one of the stated campaign goals of trustee Doug Dechairo when he ran for the board last year.
The process the board contracted for has been used for several years by the Oceanside and Poway school districts.
“They schedule forums throughout the community,” explained Dr. Obermeyer. “We would do five. One board member would attend each of the forums.” The superintendent will attend all of them. Randomly selected parents will be invited to attend.
Perino will use the meetings to facilitate the process of gathering information about attitudes towards the district. The information will be collated and then shared with the board members.
The trustees will be able to use the information to make decisions about continuing to do things or to change them.
All officers of the Valley Center History Museum, led by president William Hutchings, were reelected to another term at the organization’s annual meeting on June 27.
Also returned to office were vice president Sarah Clayton, treasurer Nicky Lovejoy and secretary Joyce Johnson. The four officers head a 12–member board that governs the history museum and the Valley Center Historical Society.
Other board members are Lynne Boyett, William Boyett, Earl Brown, Marjorie Deskovick, Ira Goode, Wayne Hilbig, Robert Lerner and Petei McHenry.
A sub-unit of the board, titled Pioneers, includes Leo Calac, Steven Harris, Linda Saffiote and Marcia Wrisley.
County Assessor / Recorder / Clerk Gregory J. Smith announced last week that the assessed value of all taxable property in San Diego County has increased $33.5 billion over the previous year to $391.4 billion. This is a 9.36% increase in total assessed value, and includes the values of 968,067 parcels, 159,213 businesses, 69,941 boats, 22,593 mobile homes, and 5,021 aircraft.
The Roadrunner obtained figures for Valley Center, Pauma Valley and Palomar Mountain.
The total real property (land only) assessed valuation for Valley Center was $2,438,792,927 ($2.4 billion) for 7,180 parcels, compared to $2,242,229,771 for 7,109 parcels for 2006. This represents an 8.74% increase from last year.
The total real property assessed valuation for Pauma Valley was $379,988,476 on 1,188 parcels compared to $338,079,052 for 1,193 parcels for last year. This represents a 12.13% increase.
The total real property (land only) assessed valuation for Palomar Mountain (the 92060 zip code) was $93,695,373 on 1037 parcels. This compares to $84,011,921 on 1049 for 2006 and represents an 11.52% increase.
Smith assured property owners that the 9.36% overall increase does not apply to individual properties. Under State law (Prop. 13), real property is reassessed only upon a change in ownership or new construction.
Except for these two instances, property assessments cannot be increased by more than 2% annually.
The Assessor's Office appraised over 74,500 properties due to changes of ownership and 32,400 properties with new construction for a total of 106,900 reassessments. An additional 13,000 new parcels were added to the assessment roll this year because of new subdivisions and condominiums.
New construction and sales activity in the residential sector slowed this year, but the commercial and industrial sector continued to be strong.
According to Smith, “The residential real estate market changed from a seller’s to a buyer’s market in San Diego County in 2006.” This change resulted in lower sales prices in certain segments of the residential market.
Taking a proactive approach, the Assessor's Office reduced the value of over 11,500 residential properties this year due to the decline in values. This tax relief is available if the property's market value has fallen below its assessed value as shown on the property tax bill. For all intents and purposes, this only affected properties purchased at the height of the real estate market in 2005/06.
Chelsea R. Dyer of the Pauma Valley 4-H with her Reserve Grand Champion beef project at Saturday’s livestock auction at the San Diego County Fair. See story, A-11.
The VC Fire Protection District board at its June meeting adopted a series of new fire prevention fees that had not been updated in five years.
The new fire marshal, George Lucia, recommended the new fee schedule (which is available at the fire district office on Lilac Road).
For example, currently a building plan review for a residence costs $50 for up to 1000 square feet. The new cost will be $100.
Currently it costs $200 for a building plan review for a commercial property up to 5,000 sq.ft. Under the new fee structure it will cost $350.
However, there are dozens of things for which fees might be charged, including fire alarm system modifications, subdivision maps, major use permits and special event permits. All will be updated.
However, the board tabled until next month Lucia’s proposal to add a $35 charge for the annual business inspections. Director Dan Thornton felt that the public should have a notice of the change and have a chance to give input at the July 19 meeting.
In his monthly report, Lucia noted that, “There continues to be a brisk rate of single family residences. A lot of people are testing the water to see if they can build. We are getting a lot of ISO (Insurance Services Office) inquiries.”
His office is also getting a lot of fire code complaints now that hot weather is here. “We are abating any true hazards and not getting involved in neighborhood disputes,” he said.
He noted doing two fire investigations last month. One was of smoke coming from a structure where fire investigators found an electric short on a water heater.
The other was a juvenile at a school involved in fire play. Lucia recommended the child for a school intervention program that is operated by the San Diego Burn Institute.
Lucia is also acting as the district’s public information office, informing the public about rattlesnake safety, red flag alerts and pool safety. He is also working with local schools on disaster planning and public safety.
In other business the board approved the purchase of a new fire engine at a cost that will will approach $400,000 when all of the incidental costs are factored in.
It will take a year to get delivery on the fire truck. It will purchased with a five year lease purchase agreement. The district already has $180,000 set aside for a new engine. So it will be able to pay the first and second installments before dipping into general funds.
Jonathan Rojas will be working this summer as an intern with The Roadrunner doing a series of articles on businesses in the area.
Rojas, 25, is a graduate of Valley Center High School. He attended Palomar Community College before transferring to UC Riverside, where he earned a degree in creative writing.
At Riverside he won the Chancellor’s Performance Award for Fiction for a short story entitled Blankets to Des Moines.
There followed an internship with Tint Magazine for three months, where he was a feature writer.
The magazine’s focus is “women of color.” He wrote about women of color in Iraq, and a feature about the significance of civil rights figure Rosa Parks upon the occasion of her death. He also wrote about “blacksploitation” films and their significance and about Bollywood, the Indian film industry capital.
Since then Rojas has been in the process of revising a novella and expanding it into a novel. He has also been writing articles for our sports section, working with sports editor Dan Kidder. For instance, he wrote a piece about the VC History Museum’s 10,000th visitor.
“I just finished a short story about high school kids in 1998. Most of the time fiction is what I do in my spare time. I send it out to different publications,” he said.
Rojas’s ambition is to become a critic for films and music and to someday publish a book. Some authors that he admires are J.D. Salinger, John Fante and Michael Jaime.
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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