Letter to the Editor: Oh bitter ending!… a sad day for VC




Many thanks to the hundreds of local residents who supported the preservation of the CCC Camp site and the CCC Interest Group, and special thanks to the VC Community Planning Group who supported the preservation and recognition of our history and heritage.

By the time VC residents read this all traces of the historically important site on Cole Grade Road, known variously as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp (ca. 1933), Camp Roe ( a WW II military training camp), and the California Department of Forestry (CDF) fire station will have been cleared away.

This is indeed a sad day for Valley Center because this site was of national and local historical significance and played an important role in the formation and development of Valley Center was used as a CCC Camp in the 1930s, as clearly documented by material readily available at the Valley Center History Museum, contrary to the EIR submitted by VCPUSD, and the District’s very sad effort to revise our history, could have provided a valuable historical and educational resource for our community, school children, and visitors was not given a chance to be preserved in any form, or the buildings moved, because the School Board refused to meet with members of the community who wished to observe and memorialize the importance of this site,

…could have been a community resource, in addition to a sports field, through a most generous offer to rehabilitate or relocate a portion of the site for use by the entire community, which offer was ignored by the School Board and the secret and unlawful destruction of the site resulted in an avoidable, expensive and divisive lawsuit.

This is a sad day and a significant loss for Valley Center. Mais c’est fini.

We hope that in the future our newly appointed superintendent and newly elected school board will recognize and support the history and heritage of Valley Center and use public money for the benefit of the entire community.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the CCC Interest Group.

Jon Vick

Last Words by James Joyce, 1882-1941



*Note: Opinions expressed by columnists and letter writers are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the newspaper.

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