The 60-year old 200-inch Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain was one of many telescopes across the globe and in space that were called into action to watch the impact of NASA’s LCROSS mission. LCROSS, short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, was intentionally crashed into a dark crater near the south pole of the moon.
It is believed that craters such as this one, which never receive sunlight, might harbor large quantities of water ice. It was hoped that the impact would dredge up dust, rock and vaporized ice into a giant plume of material that would be visible here on earth with telescopes as small as 12 inches in aperture. Astronomers could then analyze the ejected material in attempt to confirm or deny the possibility of water ice being located there. Unfortunately no impact plume was visible from any telescope that observed the impact.
The best observations of this event were clearly made with the Hale Telescope on Palomar. The old 200-inch was using an instrument that removes any blurring affects caused by turbulence in our atmosphere, giving it a resolving power greater than that of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Tension and excitement in the data room at Palomar grew as the clock ticked to the impact at 4:31 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 9. It was standing room only as the scientists were joined by interested members of the observatory staff and a film crew from the BBC, which traveled halfway around the globe just to witness the event from Palomar.
The telescope and its observing system performed flawlessly, yet as the impact time came and then passed there was no obvious sign of the impact. A live video feed from the control room at NASA’s Ames Research Center confirmed that the impact had occurred as scheduled. Other observatories soon began to confirm that nothing was seen.
First images from the probe and the observatories monitoring the event were shown off at NASA’s 7 a.m. press briefing. Although the impact was not observed, it was obvious at that time that Palomar’s images were the sharpest from any telescope that observed the event.
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Scott Kardel is the public information officer for Palomar Observatory.
The Citizens Coordinate for Century III, better known as C3, has awarded its most prestigious honor, the Revelle Award, to Valley Center’s Lael Montgomery.
Some past award winners are: Lionel Van Deerlin, Richard Louv, Philip Unitt, Lucy Killea, James Hubbell, Emily Durbin, Ernest Hahn and Neil & Judith Morgan.
Dr. Montgomery is a founder and current chairman of the “Heart of Valley Center,” an educational, nonpartisan and non-profit organization devoted to protecting and enhancing the unique country character of Valley Center. She is also chairman of the Valley Center Design Review Board.
She was elected to the Valley Center Planning Group in 2003 and served until 2008. During her tenure as a member of the planning group, she organized the first Villages Subcommittee and served as its chairman. Village subcommittee work included a series of community design workshops that she organized and coordinated with the county Dept. of Planning & Land Use.
During this time Dr. Montgomery organized and wrote with Ruth Baak, a former Valley Center resident, the first of a series of grant applications and local donations which have provided more than $500,000 for landscaping Valley Center Road. The Heritage Trail is part of this project. She has served on numerous planning group subcommittees since 2001, including the General Plan Update Subcommittee which is currently writing the new Valley Center Community Plan.
C-3 was impressed by her devotion, energy and success in improving the design quality of projects in Valley Center, particularly in her continuing stewardship of the design process for the North Village.
C-3 is a nonprofit group of informed citizens who have played an important role in local and regional planning issues in San Diego for over 50 years. C-3 offers a comprehensive approach to growth management by encouraging open space, high standards of urban design, and coordination of planning between public and private sectors so that San Diego’s continuing development will complement its natural setting. The current president is Stephen Haase.
Sally Cobb had a dream to serve the horse owning community. She has seen it turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare, where rules change before her eyes and costs inflate to dizzying heights.
“It all seems so arbitrary. You can’t ask two people and get the same answers,” she says. And those answers change over time.
Mrs. Cobb never imagined how hard it would be to get a permit to board horses on ten acres that her family owns on Andreen Road, off Spearhead Trail, which is off Circle R Drive three miles from I-15.
Seven years after moving into the Tapestry Meadows property, she has spent $100,000 and been told by the County that she will probably spend another $94,000.
“The main beef I have against DPLU [Dept. of Planning & Land Use] is that they lure applicants into the permitting process with affordable fee estimates presented in the pre-app meetings, but soon the fees have doubled and tripled. In our case, they have increased our fees by a thousand percent.
“I could literally spend a million dollars before I’m through,” says Mrs. Cobb.
She alleges that the County required that she perform tasks that—through County incompetence—caused delays, and was penalized because she took so long.
Her family bought the property hoping to use it for horses.
It had a 50-year-old orange grove on it. “We knew that you don’t want protected habitat if you want to do something,” she recalls. They cut six acres of trees, leaving a band three trees deep.
“Initially we wanted a private horse ranch. There are no licensed horse boarding facilities in Valley Center, probably because most people are zoned to board their horses at home,” she says.
The business offers horse boarding of up to 30 horses, including horses owned by the occupants.
“My dream was to serve the community and children with after school equestrian physical education; to contract with the schools, like they do in San Marcos and Encinitas.
“We had our five horses that we had been boarding out. After about six months I thought it was boring. I decided to see if we could board a few horses like thousands of other properties.”
To board one horse requires a major use permit (MUP), which equaled major headache.
Mrs. Cobb admits that she began boarding horses in April of 2003 without a permit.
“The person that moved into our guesthouse—a former business associate—left after six months, and because she was disgruntled, turned us into Code Enforcement.”
Code Enforcement’s records show five complaints made from 2003–06. One was for building a roofed horse corral without permits. One was for grading without permits. Two were for building a house without permits (Mrs. Cobb says the house was built when she bought the property). One complaint was for boarding horses without a permit (see DPLU’s comment at the end of the story).
She was boarding two horses when Code Enforcement visited. The officer gave her a choice to close the business or to apply for a major use permit through the Dept. of Planning & Land Use. “She told us that once we were in the process Code Environment would leave us alone.”
She scheduled pre-application meetings in September of 2003 to learn about MUP costs and details.
Bob Forsythe of DPLU was assigned to research her project and property and the ramifications of getting a permit, including required improvements. After a half-hour meeting he said he saw no problems and gave a fee estimate of $8,660 in County costs.
Mrs. Cobb hired an engineer well versed in horse issues who estimated $25,000 for the work. “We worked on the hundred page application for eighteen months—then she [the engineer] went through a divorce and Code Enforcement told us we weren’t moving fast enough,” she recalls.
To speed things up Mrs. Cobb put out an RFP (request for proposal) to 30 engineers—and got two responses. A San Marcos engineer ended up charging $40,000 when they finally submitted the application in June 2006.
The engineer estimated that the maximum the permit would cost, including the other required permits was $100,000.
Within three months DPLU issued a “scoping letter” requiring a CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) study. That and the fees in the scoping letter raised the fees from $8,000 to $31,000.
“The first planner we had was extremely slow and incompetent,” recalls Mrs. Cobb. “He would take weeks to return phone calls.”
His original scoping letter had included the need to mitigate coastal sage, a protected species.
Mrs. Cobb protested that the property had an orchard on it. Eventually the planner was persuaded to visit the site. “He admitted he had been looking at the map wrong and that the habitat was in the neighboring property.
“Even so, he thought there might have been coastal sage growing there at one time.” After interviewing several biologists, he determined that there was no habitat to disturb. A revised scoping letter was issued admitting that fact.
Then she got a call from Devon Muto, Chief, Advance Planning for DPLU. “He told me, ‘You are going to have to bring the roads that line your property up to public road standards according to Board Policy I-18.’ ” That included installing street lights.
Mrs. Cobb felt this was unreasonable. “This is not a Costco or a commercial mall! There are three hundred or more horses within a three mile radius. Their owners don’t want their roads paved. The neighbors don’t want the roads paved. We don’t want to pave. If we have to pave we are not going to go forward,” she told the County.
She was told that she would have to do a traffic study to determine how many trips per day that her business would generate and that she might be required to pay the County’s Traffic Impact Fee (TIF), then estimated at $700/trip.
She had been advised to estimate twice as many horses as she needed because it would be hard to increase that number later.
That was bad advice. “I initially asked for sixty horses, which put us into a huge commercial project. I should have asked for thirty.” Because of TIF estimates she dropped the plan to offer kids camps and dropped the number of horses to 30. In the finished traffic study, that knocked the number of daily trips to 20. It also removed the requirement for a CEQA study, according to her traffic engineer. Note: Applicants are required to hire CEQA approved consultants from a County approved list. Most on the list refused to work on such a small project!
Other delays and meetings followed. The County rejected three traffic studies before accepting the fourth in July of 2008. It was approved for 30 horses without public roads or sidewalks. And because the TIF rules had changed as of 2008, the fee was reduced from $100,000 to $4,000.
Mrs. Cobb proceeded because the road improvements were no longer required. She hired a CEQA consultant to finish the study.
She asked a DPLU planner, Code Enforcement and zoning officials to visit the property, something the city-based officials rarely do. DPLU planner Jarrett Ramaiya was impressed and told her, “I’m going to waive the visual analysis from the scoping letter.”
Since the biological study and visual analysis were also waived, wouldn’t her fees go down? she asked. He said they would—by $5,000. As of that moment Mrs. Cobb was told that her county fees would be $26,000.
“We were very excited and thought we were sailing through to our permit application,” she recalls. A complication arose when the fire marshal of the Deer Springs Fire Protection District told her she would now have to pave her parking areas and roads to give access to fire vehicles.
“Unfortunately, paving and horses don’t mix. No one will board with me if we pave.” She met with the fire marshal who said she couldn’t grant an exception.
Getting a project signed off by the fire department is part of the DPLU process. “They give you deadline dates, which you must meet or ask for extensions.” Mrs. Cobb kept her planner informed of the reasons for the delay.
In May she learned of a Bonsall property owner who had the same zoning, and 80 horses, who successfully petitioned for a variance.
She asked if she could get such a variance. She was referred to a supervisor, who said she would never get a variance because she was a “code” case, and added that her fees had gone up to $94,000.
How was this possible? She was told that the department had a new way to estimate permit costs. She received a two-page letter that explained this and informed her that if her scoping letter requirements were not met by July she would be given back to Code Enforcement. That and a bill for $500 for asking the question.
At this point, “We’re ninety percent done with the requirements. We don’t have ninety four thousand dollars but I’m not going to let this die.”
She has been informed that the County has accepted her submittal and its CEQA study, along with a letter stating that the County needed another $18,000 by Oct. 5. That will be applied to the $94,000 she owed. That’s in addition to the $100,000 she has spent so far.
The VC Planning Group will examine her plight Oct. 19. Chairman Oliver Smith describes her situation: “I believe the expansion of the Tapestry Meadows Equestrian Center project scope from a small submittal to the current Major Use Permit with required road paving proposal is a good example of how the DPLU seems to be running amuck in its own regulations. They appear to be setting overbearing requirement precedents without common sense or situational understanding. It seems to be particularly prevalent when an applicant lacks resources to fight what to me is an obvious misuse of process.”
“We have run out of money, basically,” says Mrs. Cobb.
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Asked to comment on Mrs. Cobb’s story, Gig Conaughton, public affairs officer for DPLU, provided these comments:
“We understand that she’s frustrated, but we disagree with her characterization that our department has made this more difficult for her. In fact, we have worked very hard to try to help her navigate the process.
“The history of this is simple. We were introduced to Mrs. Cobb after we responded to four code enforcement complaints regarding her business. We advised Mrs. Cobb from the beginning that she would need a Major Use Permit because she was operating a business. Our zoning oOrdinance requires a MUP because a business—a stable that at one time proposed boarding and training eighty horses, offering riding lessons to the public, and proposed summer camps— can create the numerous effects on surrounding neighbors. From noise, traffic, dust, odors, etc.
“Mrs. Cobb has requested five time extensions since 2006, all of which we granted. Because Mrs. Cobb’s process has taken longer than expected, there have been a few conditions that have changed. For example, when Mrs. Cobb held her first pre-application meeting in 2003, the County did not have a Traffic Impact Fee. By the time she came back, held her second pre-application meeting and submitted her project, we did.
“Our department thought Mrs. Cobb’s project would have been completed and brought forward to a hearing by now.”
Valley Center High School celebrated Homecoming on Friday night, as the Jaguar football team hosted the Westview Wolverines and the classes showed off their school spirit for the hometown crowd.
Celebrating all the world’s cultures with a theme of “Dancing Around The World,” each class designed and built a float that it showed off before the game.
Later, the results were tabulated and it was revealed that the seniors’ float was the winner, followed by the juniors, the sophomores, and the freshmen.
At halftime, the princes and princesses from each class were introduced, and a recorded message from each member of the homecoming court was played. The members of the court were also joined by members of their families on the stage.
When all the votes were in, Valley Center celebrated its new king and queen, Stanton Upson and Megan Glennie.
The pair was honored with a crowning ceremony in front of friends and family before Upson was called back to action as the starting running back for the football team.
The rest of the senior court consisted of Tommy Jauregui and Krista Clayton, and Patrick Preston and Lindsey Bales.
The junior class prince and princess were Lance Armstrong and Laura Wilkinson, while for the sophomores it was Jacob Beason and Erica Kiesow, and for the freshmen it was Eduardo Penaloza and Daisy Penaloza.
For Palomar Mountain postmaster Lisa A. Di Paolo being postmaster is more than just selling stamps and putting mail in P.O. boxes.
“This is pretty much the center of the community,” she observes, standing next to a sign she has on the wall that says, “Because nice matters.”
The post office IS the center of the mountain community. There’s just it and the general store and Mother’s kitchen. The rest is forest, a few hundred houses, a fire station, a school, and, of course, the observatory.
Postmaster Di Paolo just earned an honor that only 34 out of 20,000 postmasters across the country have earned. It is based on enhancing community relations and is called the “Good News ‘Benjamin’ Recognition Program.
On Sept. 10 Di Paolo got a letter from John Potter, U.S. postmaster general in which he noted that “This award is our highest public relations honor for those who have been the most successful in generating positive publicity for the Postal Service.”
Di Paolo is always available to help with things like the annual fire department barbecue or raising public awareness to keep the local state park from being closed. She frequently gets customer appreciation letters.
Her little office (and it IS little) has a book exchange going and is collecting cell phones to benefit soldiers overseas, collect glasses for the Lions Club, assisting the Palomar Mountain wildflower project, working with UPS/Fed Ex drivers to make sure customers get their packages. She also attends many USPS events and helps other offices often with audits etc.
“I do my best to give an exceptional customer experience. I go above and beyond to help them in any way possible. For me it’s more community involvement.”
The Good News ‘Benjamin’ program is open to all postmasters, managers, supervisors and customer relations coordinators, giving them the opportunity to be recognized for efforts in promoting good news about the Postal Service and its employees.
The undefeated Valley Center Jaguar varsity football team will host Westview on Friday night as the team celebrates homecoming.
The Jags, who have defeated San Pasqual, La Jolla, Brawley and Mater Dei to earn their 4–0 record so far this season, will take on a 3–1 Westview team that is averaging 32 points per game.
The game will feature a halftime celebration, including floats prepared by each high school class, as well as the selection of this year’s homecoming king and queen.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m., but get their early to find a parking spot!
Valley View Casino held its first Art, Music and Wine Festival on Sunday. Hundreds turned out for food and wine tasting and to view local art. See more photos on our Web site: www.valleycenter.com/
Beginning Oct. 24 all customers with a telephone number in the 760 area code will have to change the way that they dial.
All you really need to know is this: To complete calls from a landline phone, the new dialing procedure requires callers to dial 1 + area code + telephone number. This means that all calls in the 760 or 442 area codes need to be dialed using 1 + area code + telephone number. To complete calls from a cellular or mobile phone, callers may dial the area code + telephone number or 1 + area code + telephone number whenever placing a call to a phone number with the 760 or 442 area code.
You need to do this because an overlay has been added to customers in this area, a huge geographic area that goes north as far as Bishop, east as far as Needles and Blythe, south to El Centro and west over to Camp Pendleton. It also includes Palm Springs, Yucca Valley and Victorville.
Beginning Oct. 24 it will become mandatory to dial 1-760 before dialing the rest of the seven digit number that you punch in to call numbers in Valley Center (751 and 749 prefixes) and Pauma Valley and Palomar Mountain (742 prefixes).
Beginning in November all new phone numbers added within the old 760 area will be assigned the new 442 area code.
Ever since May you have been able to dial numbers the new way in order to get used to it.
Besides changing the way you dial, you will have to reprogram such things as automatic dialing equipment, Fax machines or computers that use dial-up Internet services.
Despite the change, calls that are considered local calls now will still be local calls. The price of a call, coverage area, or other rates and services will not change.
You can still reach emergency services by dialing 911, and information by dialing 411, as well as other three digit numbers such as 611 and 811.
If you have questions, call AT&T at 800-331-0500 or visit www.att.com/california760 or www.cpuc.ca.gov/760areacode/
A fire demonstration at Sunday’s Fire Prevention Day at Rincon Reservation. The all day event was put on by the tribal fire department. See our Web site: www.valleycenter. com for a gallery of more photos.
We have three people to commend this week—all of whom have been recognized for work that reflects well on themselves and their community.
Lael Montgomery has been given the prestigious Revelle Award which goes to people who have been proven civic leaders. She is in very distinguished company. It is rare that this award reaches out to the Backcountry to tap a rural resident, so that makes Dr. Montgomery’s recognition all that much more remarkable. She has served on the planning group, is the current chairman of the Design Review Board and has worked long hours on the Valley Center version of the General Plan Update.
Diana Souther, an outstanding teacher at the Primary School, who was earlier this year named VC’s Teacher of the Year, was honored as a finalist in the annual Salute to Teachers at the Balboa Theater in downtown San Diego. It was Mrs. Souther who was a key player in the school winning the regional award in the Governor’s Fitness Challenge last year.
The third person we’d like to recognize is Lisa A. Di Paolo, postmaster of Palomar Mountain, who recently won the Good News Benjamin Recognition Program. The postmaster has a sign over the counter that reads “Because nice matters,” and her recognition shows that there are people out there who put customer service at the top of their to-do list!
Congratulations to all of our local honorees!
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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