The developers of a small shopping center at the south end of town that will include a Major Market may have to go it alone on a sewer treatment plant expansion.
Last month’s report to the board of the Valley Center Municipal Water District (VCMWD) that half of the needed participants had signed up for the South Village Sewer makes it likely that at next Tuesday’s meeting staff will recommend not going forward with a sewer assessment district. Note: Board meetings are normally held on the first and third Monday, but this time Monday falls on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.
If that recommendation is made the only option for a plant expansion is if it is funded privately, by the developers of the Bell-Alti properties that want to put in a Major Market.
They appear ready to do that.
“We will go forward with or without others,” Wayne Hillbig, who represents the Alti properties, told The Roadrunner on Monday.
At the December meeting, Wally Grabbe, district engineer, reported that 81 EDUs (equivalent dwelling units) returned the participation letters which were sent to potential signatorees several weeks ago. One hundred and ninety-four EDUs were called for in the original plan.
Originally the Bell-Alti properties had asked the water district to be allowed to go forward on their own, but they were asked by the VCMWD if they would allow neighbors to join in the project if they wanted to do so.
Hilbig said yes.
As Hilbig explained to The Roadrunner, “We said yes because I had been denied the opportunity to gain sewer by being part of the Woods Valley original plant and the Orchard Run plant by the respective developers, and both Steve [Flynn, of the Bell properties] and I did not want to exclude others if the plant expansion could accommodate them.”
Flynn told The Roadrunner, “We’re kind of in the same boat as the Alti properties. We’re definitely together. We want to continue forward, either alone or with as many people in the Village as feasible who want to join us.”
It is unknown how other private parties could be allowed to connect to the plant expansion if the Bell-Alti properties go it alone, as it seems likely they will.
The meeting will start a 2 p.m. in the water district board room. Gary Broomell is chairman of the board. The public is invited to attend.
Thoroughly Modern Millie will play Jan. 22–24 at Valley Center High School.
This year’s VCHS Musical Theater production takes place during the Prohibition era.
The protagonist, Millie Dillmount (played by Samantha Carr), has just arrived in New York City. She calls herself a “new woman,” wearing daring shorter skirts, higher heels and, of course, the classic “bob” haircut.
Millie’s plan is to get a job and then marry her rich (hopefully) and handsome (non negotiable!) boss as soon as possible.
Her plan is foiled when she falls in love with Jimmy Smith (played by Dylan Wolff). She has some crazy adventures with her best friend, Miss Dorothy (Kelsey Schwarz); her boss, Trevor Graydon (Aaron Mendez); and the Roaring 20s singing star, Muzzy Van Hossmere (Katelyn Collie).
VCHS junior Katelyn Collie says she loves working with the 50-member cast, crew and orchestra. “We’re like one big happy family, but are able to work as professionals as well,” she says.
Sophomore Julia Bozarth agrees with Katelyn, “This is my first time dancing and it’s been an exciting challenge. The other kids are a great group to be around and are constantly coming up with new dance ideas.”
Co-director and conductor of the pit band, Laralee Beck has directed many past VCHS musical theater productions including Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, and High School Musical.
“I had a great time with all of them,” she said, "but I think this is the most fun I’ve ever had doing a show at the high school. I love the Roaring 20s era and especially the music. Oh, and one of the best things about this show is the humor! It’s full of timeless jokes audiences of today will love.”
Co-director and choreographer Tammy Merrick added, “Each and every year I grow as an educator, an artist, and a person thanks to the talented and passionate students in the Musical Theater program.”
VCHS Musical Theater meets Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, then moves into intensive rehearsals for sweat week, the week before the show.
Sophomore Dylan Wolff said, “Even though the play has been around for quite a few years, many people—especially kids—haven’t seen it yet, so it’ll be a fun new experience for the whole family to enjoy.”
Alex Washburn, who plays the part of Cora, said, “This is my first time as a full-on dancer in a show and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve learned several new dance styles and have had a lot of fun working with this cast.”
Senior Rachael Heller is also learning quite a bit. “My character is one I get to have a lot fun with because she has to pretend to be someone else in a really comical way. I also get to wear huge fake eyelashes and a kimono!” she said.
Junior Aaron Mendez commented, “I love my part because my character goes through a wide range of emotions throughout the show. Also, the costumes and makeup are fantastic and make the show even better.”
Thoroughly Modern Millie is suitable for the entire family. Performances are 6:30 p.m. Jan. 22–24 with a 1:30 p.m. matinee on the 24th. Tickets cost $12 and can be bought online.
For more information or to buy tickets visit www.maxine.vcpusd.net/
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Alex Carr, a freshman at VCHS, is the youngest recipient of a San Diego Press Club award in the organization's 36-year history for a piece he wrote for The Roadrunner last year.
Valley Center Planning Group Monday night applied for its own version of a “stimulous package” in the form of a $400,000 “Smart Growth” grant that would be used to plan the center “villages.”
The group followed the recommendations of its General Plan Update subcommittee, whose report was given by Sandy Smith and Rich Rudolf.
The $400,000, if granted by San Diego Assn. of Governments, would be spent on “charettes (i.e. public workshops, where attendees are broken out into various groups), possibly a survey of the community and professional planning services.
This compares to the $20,000 that was spent on the professional services that were used to produce the Valley Center Design Guidelines 20 years ago. However, these are, admittedly, different times.
“That’s the going rate,” planning group chairman Oliver Smith told The Roadrunner. “These guys are professionals and they are going to be working hundreds of hours to do this.”
SANDAG’s money for grants comes from taxes on gasoline. It is the possible source for funding for this sort of work, since as Smith and Rudolf emphasized, “The County has zero resources for this.”
The VC planners will be doing all of the grant writing, so the County won’t have to.
It will, however, require the approval of the county Board of Supervisors, and Fifth District Supervisor Bill Horn, to apply for the grant, since the County will act as the requesting agency.
The grant application is due Feb. 9.
“Smart Growth,” is the current philosophy that drives most of the county General Plan Update. The goal of Smart Growth is to place residential construction as near to jobs as possible and reduce cars on the road. This fits in well with the current high densities that are proposed for the Villages of the Central Valley.
College students from the Valley Center area have been meeting in the home of Chris & Penny Williams each Sunday evening.
Their goal is to make a difference in each others’ lives and in their community and world.
Each week the group of 15-20 shares a home cooked dinner, catches up on the week’s events, and sings Christian songs to the accompaniment of Tim Zarza on the guitar.
They also have short lessons on subjects such as dating, improving family relationships, or achieving their dreams. They are also committed to praying for each other.
They welcome other young people ages 18-25 to join them. Call Penny at 760-580-6113 for directions.
This group is supported by the Ridgeview Church but they are from several different churches in Valley Center and Escondido.
Many students in the community have not gone away for college and are working or going to Palomar College. So they have lost their sense of belonging to a community, as in high school. They are committed to each other as a support group.
For example: one student is working on a writing career and is using this is a source of getting feedback and encouragement regarding his writings.
Another has a grandfather who just died. Another flipped his Jeep last month on Paradise Mountain. They are going through life together.
These students are at a time in their lives of making decisions that will direct their entire future. They want to do it right.
One of the activities they are planning together is a mission trip to Quepos, Costa Rica.
They will be flying down to Quepos around June 21 for a nine day Mission Trip. Many of the students have never been out of the country. This will be their first international experience.
The plans for the mission trip are to do construction work on several houses in a poor barrio on the outskirts of town. They will work under the guidance of Bill & Debbie Boling who are living in that community as missionaries.
They will all pitch in and provide materials and physical labor to upgrade the families’ homes.
Each afternoon they will lead the children in the barrio in a one hour class. This will be comprised of a short Bible lesson, some singing, and a craft together.
Then the college students will play with their “adopted” children. They plan on playing soccer, hackysack, frisbee, and anything else that the children are interested in.
Each student will be assigned to two or three children and will continue to stay in contact with those three in the future.
The group intends to go back each year to work with these children. They will correspond with them in the interim.
The students will host several fund-raisers and ask the community of Valley Center to support them:
All the events will happen at Ridgeview Church near the middle school on Lake Wohlford Road.
Each first Sunday of the month, there will be a car wash from 8 a.m.–noon for donations.
Each third Friday of the month, the college students will provide babysitting from 5:30-9:30 p.m. for children up to age 11.
The price is $5 per hour for one child, the second sibling is free. Each additional sibling costs $2.50 per hour.
Dinner and movies are provided. (Call 760 580-6113 to make reservations for babysitting).
Each third Sunday of the month will be a pancake breakfast from 9–11 a.m.. The cost is $5 per person and includes pancakes and sausage, orange juice and coffee.
Drop by and bring your neighbors. Stay for church if you feel led to do so.
The Valley Center Planning Group Monday night punted the controversial parts of the road standards it will recommend to the County to a special meeting to be held on Jan. 21, 7 p.m. at a location to be announced.
The most dramatic point in Monday’s meeting came when Larry Glavinic, giving a minority report of the circulation subcommittee, declared that if the group voted to adopt road standards recommended by the subcommittee it would “agree to accept gridlock. …This community ought to be able to vote that it’s going to accept roads that will be non-functional. I want a road that looks nice, but I want a road that will actually work!”
His report followed the majority report given by the newly appointed chairman of the subcommittee, Deborah Hofler. (The previous chairman, John Coulombe resigned from the committee and the planning group.)
After it became clear that a deep divide separated members who support country road standards and narrower roads from those who stress roads that can handle the traffic, newly reelected Chairman Oliver Smith suggested a resolution that includes all non-controversial items on road standards, but separates individual i.e. controversial roads to be addressed at the special meeting.
“The community cannot agree on specificity,” he declared. “There is too much controversy. There is not enough information out for the community to know all of the issues.
“Right now we have two opposing camps that are splitting the community. One group wants four lanes and we have other people who want little winding roads. We don’t have the information we need. The new members don’t have the information they need to vote on this. We need to get as much information in that we all agree on into the County.”
The new members he referred to were the elected in November. Only one, Rich Rudolf, has served on a planning group before. The others are Brian Bachman, Hans Britsch, Christine Lewis and Dave Anderson.
The group wanted to get some input on road standards to forward to the County to meet a deadline later in the month.
According to Smith, they have until fall to thrash out what they want for individual roads, including Cole Grade, Lilac, Woods Valley, Old Castle, Miller, Fruitvale, the east west connector, and Mirar De Valle to I-15.
One individual road the group could agree on Monday night was to remove Road 3A, the controversial “Hornsville” road inserted last year onto the map by county staff at the behest of Supervisor Bill Horn.
Smith told The Roadrunner on Tuesday, “I’d like to be able to say that we will have input for the county draft update [of the General Plan]. If we can’t we can’t. I’m not going to push a road standard that there is a violent opposition to.”
During Dr. Hofler’s report, she argued that if VC supports a four-lane Cole Grade Road, it will ultimately get a road like Palomar Airport Road, with noise blocking walls along it.
“We are saying if you have a road there are five different ways to engineer the road, but we want rural road standards to be one of those five ways,” she said.
She conceded that she and the majority of the subcommittee would “accept a lower level of service not to have four lanes.”
She explained that the County has very limited funds to spend on roads—which is to say no money currently.
“They would rather widen than build new ones because it’s cheaper. So they press for wider ones. So you have to think of it in terms of whether we want new roads or wider roads,” she said.
She noted, for instance, that the County wants a four-lane Lilac Road from Betsworth to the Harvest Farms Center. It also wants a four lane Woods Valley Road to Bates Nut Farm. The subcommittee prefers two lanes and to designate the road as a scenic highway.
“We think an improved road with turning lanes [called ‘suicide lanes’ by their critics] is more appropriate. We will accept a lower level of service not to have four lanes,” she said.
During his rebuttal Glavinic declared, “The whole purpose of the plan is to handle growth, preserve what is here and provide sustainability. But if you don’t have sustainability you are flawed from the get go.”
He said the County is asking 14 unincorporated communities, “to accept gridlock.”
If VC accepts the County’s plan, “four roads will be gridlocked when you put in all the rooftops. Someday someone will say, ‘How come I can’t take my kids to school today?’”
Rebutting Glavinic, Sandy Smith, also of the subcommittee, said the County’s maps actually show a “one hundred year build out” and their numbers need to be “dialed back.”
“If you reduce the population you reduce the clogged roads,” she said. She believes that the County’s over-inflated population numbers could lead to overbuilt roads that could harm community character.
“I believe community character is as important as numbers,” Smith said.
Planner Terry Van Koughnett was concerned about the ability of people to get out of town during an emergency.
“It’s very difficult to get out of town during a fire. It takes an hour and a half to get down Cole Grade road after a fireworks. That road is not adequate. There aren’t enough ways to get out of town,” said Van Koughnett.
Planner Nancy Layne commented, “I disagree vehemently that we should accept a two lane road because we want country roads. I think we will have to accept the building of larger roads.”
Rudolf said that the original understanding when the general plan update began a decade ago was that the County would plan density first and see if the roads fit that scheme—then go back and tweak the population numbers.
“That never happened,” he said. He argued that the way the County is planning now won’t pass muster when the plan is subjected to an environmental impact review.
“All this report says is that we are asking the County to make the roads the way we want them, and then get back to the original process and see what will make those roads work.”
By DAVID ROSS
Michael Long, project manager for the Valley Center Road Widening project said this week that he is confident that all four lanes of the road will be open by July of this year.
“The road is finally looking like it is progressing, some evidence that it is finally coming to fruition. I know it’s been trying but I am confident that the completion schedule that I provided to The Roadrunner will be correct, that we will open all four lanes by July of 2009,” said Long, who has shepherded the project since the untimely death of Brendan McNabb.
Long reiterated that the state budget problem won’t affect the project.
What this means, ladies and gentlemen, is that IT’S TIME TO PARTY!
Last week when I interviewed incoming Chamber of Commerce President Shawneen Burdick, I suggested that this summer we should celebrate with “Valley Center Road Freedom Day.”
She loved the idea.
We both agreed it should be a day, or even a weekend, of celebrating Valley Center’s businesses, of open houses, a party atmosphere, a festival to celebrate everything that is great about Valley Center, and great about being freed from the burden of constant roadwork and gridlocked traffic.
To make such an event a success, we need to start planning it now. It’s time to celebrate our freedom from road work!
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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