Part II
We continue with our review of the years 1999-2009 in Valley Center, Pauma Valley and Palomar Mountain.
2000
In July of 2000 Milo Taylor, who for many years was Valley Center’s “High Sheriff,” during Western Days, died. The following month Tom Wallace, founder of Wallace Hardware, died at age 82. Other notable deaths included Jerry Armstrong, a beloved egg rancher who also served several years on the school board and led the County Farm Bureau and Joe Barry, a genuine Valley Center character, crusty but with a heart of gold, who headed VC’s Design Review Board for several years.
During the summer the unified school district began holding hearings on a proposal to open a charter school on the Rincon Reservation.
At the same time the district was preparing to take over direct management of Valley Center High School, which had been built by the Escondido High School District. The school board was also studying doing away with an old VC institution: eighth grade graduation.
The County Board of Supervisors was doing premilinary work to design a new County library, to be built just off Cole Grade Road. Later in the year Supervisor Bill Horn announced that Abbe and Louis Wolfshiemer would be contributing $250,000 to help the county build a history museum next door to the library.
The County was also analyzing how the soon-to-be-built casinos were going to impact North County.
That same month the Rincon tribe held a ground-breaking for its first casino, a temporary “Sprong structure,” that would soon be followed by a permanent casino, and then a high rise hotel. The first slot machine was to arrive in November.
The same month San Pasqual reservation opened its own temporary casino at a site that was planned to be a place holder until the tribe could build on a parcel overlooking Lake Wolhford. That site ultimately did not pan out and the permanent casino would be built where it stands today, overlooking Valley Center Middle School.
The year ended with the announcement that Valley Center would get a permanent California Highway Patrol presence, just another sign of a growing community with enhanced road enforcement needs.
2001
Valley Center’s first casino, the Rincon Casino, officially opened in January. It called itself “The Slot Player’s Paradise,” and was really just a dress rehearsal for the much larger casino that was planned for May of 2001, to be operated by Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc.
Valley View Casino was next to open, in April with a $30 million facility that was intended to be Phase I of a much larger planned full-fledged gaming palace.
The County continued to be somewhat less than charmed by Indian gaming, and Supervisor Bill Horn asked the newly constituted California Gambling Control Commission for more control over Indian gaming.
Parents and students of Valley Center High School mourned the deaths of two popular and promising young students, Isaac Lawson and Renee Dawson, killed in a car accident.
A Valley Center fixture for many years, Ken Knust, a self-described curmudgeon who had the voice of a lion and a heart of gold, died at the age of 60.
The VC Fire Protection District began accepting proposals to create a paramedic service.
The biggest of the planned area Indian casinos, in Pala, prepared to open with a $110 milion facility.
In May Rincon Casino opened its Phase II operation, with over 1,200 Las Vegas style slot machines.
Jan. 16, noon is the deadline if you want to be one of the talented, intelligent, and well-spoken young women participating in the 2010 Miss Valley Center Scholarship Pageant, which will be held Saturday March 20 at the Maxine Theater.
At that pageant Miss Valley Center and Junior Miss Valley Center will be chosen.
On that day a mandatory meeting will be held at Ann’s School of Dance—which leaves a short time before orientation. Parents are welcome to come with their daughter to orientation.
Pageant director Debra Jockinsen advises potential contestants, “Make sure you get your applications in soon.”
Miss Valley Center serves as an ambassador of the community throughout the San Diego area, gains the admiration of fellow residents and has the opportunity to win a scholarship, cash and prizes. This will be the 42nd year the unincorporated area of Valley Center will crown a queen.
Entry forms for the 2010 pageant are available from the Valley Center High School Web Site at www.vchs.vcpusd.net, at www.missvalleycenter.com, The Sports Closet, Mimi’s Nails, Ann’s School of Dance or by calling Debra Jockinsen. Get your entries in soon. Mail entries to the Valley Center Pageant Assn., POB 2177, Valley Center, CA, 92082-2177 or bring them to orientation.
Contestants for the Junior Miss Pageant must be 14 and no older than 16 by Jan. 16, 2010, never been married or pregnant and of high moral character.
Contestants for the Miss Pageant must be 17 years of age by Jan. 16, 2010 and not older than 25 by June 1, at least a junior at an accredited high school, never married or pregnant and of high moral character. Contestants must be a resident of Valley Center, Pauma, Pala, or Palomar Mountain at least four months or to have attended a VCPUSD school for more than a year prior to the pageant date.
The pageant includes opportunities for personal growth, scholarship funds, many prizes and experiences that last a lifetime. Kristina Joor, Miss VC 2009, and Morgan Boberg, Junior Miss VC 2009, have spent their reign attending many high profile community and charitable events throughout San Diego.
The Miss Valley Center Pageant is produced by the Valley Center Pageant Assn., a non-profit organization, committed to providing opportunities for the education and personal growth for young women in Valley Center. Donation of goods, services and education funds help improve the program. For more information, contact VCPA president, Debra Jockinsen at 760-751-1051.
Jim Quisquis wants to increase the value of VC Chamber of Commerce membership and to present and promote the community of Valley Center to the outside world.
Quisquis will be installed as the Valley Center Chamber of Commerce’s president at the installation dinner, Jan. 15, at Harrah’s Rincon Casino, in the Bordeaux Room. Cocktails are at 6 with dinner at 7 p.m.
He was recruited to be a member of the chamber last year and was soon asked to be on the board. The business he represents is Valley View Casino, where he is vice president of government and community affairs.
Quisquis, a member of the San Pasqual Reservation, has been involved in community affairs for many years, where he is a quiet but steady presence, usually offering measured, thoughtful opinions.
He brings to the job the perspective of his organizational skills, past experience with various groups and participating in various capacities as a board member of community action programs.
He has served on several subcommittees of the VC planning group, is a founding member of Heart of Valley Center, and is a member og Rez Riders, a motorcycle/charitable group that recently concluded a toy run.
He and his fellow Chamber board members have two main goals for 2010:
1) to increase the value of membership. “That’s something we’ve already had a meeting on and it’s unanimous in our intent to do exactly that,” says Quisquis. “We hope to do that by being more of an advocate for our member businesses and individuals. Because one of the things we are looking at is to make the Chamber attractive to the entire citizenry of Valley Center.
“There have been some discussions—at the very least—of linking all of the Web sites of the various groups, agencies, entities, service clubs etc. ,” he says.
2) To represent and promote Valley Center in its entirety.
Again this concept is still on the drawing boards.
“Our purpose is to ‘get out there’ more and make Valley Center more visible.” By that he definitely does not mean that the Chamber plans to be more involved in local politics or local government.
“We are not talking about increasing the visibility of the Chamber so much as promoting Valley Center to other places, whether as ambassadors or board members or simple members. We’d like everybody to be in concert about letting people know that we are here and the attractions that are here,” he says. “It’s a great family-friendly place to visit, with great values.”
One such attraction—in fact, the biggest event that the Chamber organizes—will be Western Days, held during the Memorial Day weekend.
This year, notes Quisquis, Western Days and the rodeo will be reunited as one event, all taking place at or near VC Community Center (at the corner of Lilac & Valley Center roads).
“The Western Days committee has been meeting for some time now and is going very well with Charlie Smith and Carla Miller returning again as co-chairmen.
“One of the reasons it IS going so well is that there is every possibility that the rodeo will be sanctioned this year by PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn),” he says. That will encourage the participation in the rodeo of professional rodeo cowboys and should, says Quisquis, “put us on the map in the professional rodeo circuit.”
Although Western Days has been primarily the function of the Chamber for many years, “we can’t make it happen without the entire community assisting,” says Quisquis.
“This whole thing about the Chamber and promoting Valley Center is truly expected to be a community effort and any role that I can play is what I’m here for,” he says. “I don’t expect I can do all this. It has to be a cooperative effort, with the board and all the community. We can’t promote someone if they don’t want to be promoted.
Of course, as part of these ongoing efforts, the Chamber wants to increase the membership rolls.
“We represent and promote our members and therein lies the value of membership. The Chamber can be a forum to represent the community of Valley Center—not necessarily in terms of the individuals but the location.”
For more information about the Chamber of Commerce, visit its Web site at www.vcchamber.com/ or call Sue Richmond at the Chamber office: 760-749-8472. She can give you information on buying tickets to the installation dinner, which cost $45 apiece. Banquet tickets are also available at Community Pharmacy, Valley Roadrunner, and California Bank & Trust.
What Valley Center or Pauma Valley resident made the most impact in the news in 2009? Who was the greatest force for good in our community?
We want your nominations!
Think of this person as being the local equivalent of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
You have the chance to put in your two cents’ worth with the sixth annual Newsmaker of the Year.
It will honor the person who has been in the news most frequently, had the greatest impact or done something of great benefit to the community during the year.
The Newsmaker of the Year award is not an award for merit, so much as it is an award, like Time’s Person of the Year used to be, that recognizes the most newsworthy person. The winner is chosen by the newspaper.
The possibilities are wide. The only restriction is that this person needs to have taken his or her actions during 2009.
There is no prize money, or even a physical award of any kind, associated with this recognition. It is a metaphorical laurel leaf.
Last year’s winner was VCHS athlete James Johnson, a triple-threat player in football, basketball and track.
The year before that it was the entire congregation of Ridgeview Church, so recognized for their efforts in helping fire victims after the devastating Poomacha Wildfire of 2007.
The year before that was VC-P School Supt. Lou Obermeyer. The winner for 2005 was VCHS Coach Rib Gilster. The first Roadrunner Newsmaker Award went to to four Valley Center Fire Relief “angels,” Terry & Mimi Van Koughnett, Michelle Schied, and Diane Conaway.
We invite nominations for this award. We will make the final determination from the nominees received. So please feel free to write an essay as to why this person should be given the award. Deadline is Jan. 4, 2010.
Drop nominations off at The Roadrunner office, mail them to POB 1529, Valley Center CA 92082, or email them to editor@valleycenter.com/
After ten years of piloting the Valley Center Parks & Rec. District, board Pres. Eric Jockinsen has passed the responsibility onto someone else—although he will remain on the board.
At the December board meeting directors elected Tom Litchfield as president and Tom Bumgardner as vice president of the parks board.
Jockinsen predicts that Litchfield will do, “a fantastic job! He is level-headed. He understands numbers, and as things become more complicated, the parks and rec district is becoming nothing so much as a numbers game to keep it running.”
We invited Jockinsen to The Roadrunner office to remember some high points of his time as parks president.
Jockinsen started attending parks meetings in 1991 as a volunteer “to see what it was all about.”
In 1993–94 a resident named Ken Graves got the parks board interested in doing a gazebo project next to VC Community Hall. Jockinsen and the Valley Center Optimists—which he was president of at the time—along with many other community volunteers, worked on that project which used PLDO (Parklands Development Ordinance) funds, which are collected every time a builder pulls a building permit.
In 1995 he was appointed to the parks board and in 1997 was elected vice president. He served as president from 1999-2009.
During those years the district built, beside the gazebo, the outdoor dance floor and band stand; the J.M. Scibilia Girls Softball, on Buslane Road and Cole Grade Park at other end of Buslane Road. The latter is a multiuse field for soccer, lacrosse, mens’s softball, softball and Little League.
At VC Community Hall the district resurfaced the concrete walkways around the building and the Optimists installed a horse shoe pit. “The purpose is to make the area nicer for the community.” These projects were all funded either with PLDO money or donations or a combination of the two—with labor mostly donated.
At Adams Park, which the district leases from the school district, they completely rebuilt the bathrooms to ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) standards.
Around the same time Adams Park Pool was converted from a chlorinated pool to a salt water, which reduced many of the complications associated with keeping the pool up. They also installed heaters and a snack shack so that pool groups can generate revenue.
Recently the district installed new caretaker quarters—a brand new trailer— at the park.
“We just hooked up the electricity and we will soon add a porch,” says Jockinsen. The park has been three years without live-in caretakers. Having them back will save hundreds of dollars a month in maintenance costs.
Note: if you are interested, the district is taking applications for the position starting soon.
The tennis courts at Adams Park were also refurbished, with the court surfaces done in blue—the newest thing because it supposedly makes the balls easier to see. The snack shack at the courts was also refurbished and given an outdoor cover, which provides a revenue generator for the VC Tennis Club.
The district has also been the recipient of several Eagle Scout projects during Jockinsen’s decade as president, including bleacher covers at the pool, refurbished horseshoe pits at Adams Park and a flagpole near the pool.
It also worked with a local Girl Scout troop to redo the landscaping around the pool.
The big land purchase during Jockinsen’s tenure was the acquisition of nine acres next to VC Community Hall and the fire station.
For the past few years this land was rented to Archer Western while it widened VC Road. However, it was initially purchased to be part of a new community center development. The board commissioned a study for an ambitious development that would include a senior center.
“It will work there and it is viable,” says Jockinsen. “But you are talking about a twenty million dollar project. Twice the voters have said ‘thanks but no thanks ‘and that was before the recession, so now would not be a good time to press that.”
The district also did improvements to Aerie Equestrian Park off of Betsworth, including purchasing “cool covers” and bleachers.
Currently, however, the district is looking for a new home for the Vaqueros horse group, which has used the old converted dump which is rented from the County.
“The County is getting rid of us and jacked up the rent so high that we can’t pay it. We may move them to the nine acres, at least temporarily,” says Jockinsen.
Adams Park will be the scene this year of a completed makeover.
It will be given a new gazebo with a hard roof, a dance floor, bandstand, arbor and storage for tables and chairs—all at a cost of about $125,000.
“What is there will disappear and we will rebuild it so it can be used for private parties, school functions and other revenue generators,” says Jockinsen.
Now is a good time to build, he says, because construction companies are hungry and are bidding much lower because of the recession.
“We will start once we get the plans back from the DSA (Division of State Architects), which is required because the park actually belongs to the school district. “Hopefully we will go to bid early next year. Once it’s done it will have a really nice look. It will have lights similar to the Community Hall, with electrical outlets on the dance floor.”
The arbor will also be backlit. “You’ll be able to set up the look you are after, really bright or low for dancing,” says Jockinsen.
Such revenue-generating projects help keep the district in the black. Sixty percent of its operating revenue comes from rentals. Very little comes from property taxes, and Jockinsen expects that even that might be taken as the state’s budget crisis continues.
Meanwhile, says Jockinsen, “Standing still is not an option. It’s getting harder to get anything done not only with county regulations but state regulations as well. But we will keep moving forward for as long as we can.”
In addition to operating its revenue-generating venues, the board performs a balancing and juggling act between the groups that use the parks, groups that Jockinsen, perhaps not being entirely politically correct, refers to as “special interests.”
“Just about every group that comes before us is a special interest, and all have those interests in mind when they come before us,” he says. “But we try to serve them all as best we can—along with the community as a whole.”
* * *
For more information about the Valley Center Parks & Rec District, visit their Web site at www.vcparks.net/, call 760-749-8852 or email vcparks@sbcglobal.net.
Three board seats will be up for election in 2010, including Jockinsen’s seat, that of Tom Bumgardner and Fran DeWilde.
By David Ross
Stop thinking about Republicans and Democrats and start thinking about conservatives vs. liberals. At least when it comes to 2010, and the election year that may turn out to be one of the biggest reversals of fortune in the history of the republic, potentially bigger than the mid-term elections of 1994 that returned control of the House of Representatives to the GOP for the first time in 40 years.
Polling by several different polling organizations over many years shows an interesting fact: that conservatives outnumber liberals in this country two-to-one.
Last June the Gallup polling group showed that conservatives are the largest ideological group in America: 40% of the population call themselves conservative, 35% label themselves moderates, and 21% call themselves liberal. And the percentage of those who call themselves conservatives have been growing since the 1990s.
This is peculiar because the Democratic party is dominated by liberals while the Republicans are dominated by conservatives (so-called). There are usually more registered Democrats than there are registered Republicans, although in recent weeks that statistic has started to turn around.
What that means, in effect, is that while almost all Republicans are conservatives, many conservatives are not Republicans, but rather independents. There’s also more Democrats who are calling themselves conservatives than in years past—although by far the greatest percentage of that party calls themselves liberals.
This in part explains why the country erupted into the Tea Party movement with such fury during the summer as the details of the Health Care “reform” began to be revealed—and why it wasn’t coordinated by the GOP, which was, in fact, cowering in fear and not wanted to be considered “racist” for opposing Obama’s grand plans.
It was only when the Republican leaders realized how widespread was the grassroots revolt that GOP legislators began showing up at the rallies to try to get in front of the mass movement and “lead” it.
So, are Republicans too stupid and incompetent to take full advantage of the general loathing that the liberal takeover of Washington D.C. has generated among the conservative and moderate majority that makes up this country?
Possibly so. The Republicans are the party that couldn’t find anyone better to nominate in 2000 than a former ne’er do well and reformed drunk member of the Bush family. It is the party that produced Arnold Schwarzenegger, arguably the worst governor in the history of California.
So never assume that the Republicans will do what’s best for themselves (and the country). We could, after all, see the Republicans so annoy conservatives that they decide to form a third party, thus guaranteeing Democrat domination for years to come.
But this is balanced by the fact that the Democrats, whenever they win an election, ALWAYS overreach and assume that it means that the country has suddenly turned radically liberal. They have elected the deeply liberal president they always prayed for, and he is getting nearly everything he wants from Congress. That is a recipe for disaster at the polls next November!
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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