2000 The year in review

July 1-14: Potter mania sweeps Valley

July 1

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Gray Davis signed a boom-year $99.4 billion state budget Friday that provides $3.2 billion in tax breaks and raises spending for education, transportation and housing. The budget covers the fiscal year that starts today.Saturday Drivers, teachers, businesses, the elderly and the disabled are among those sharing in the budget's tax cuts and rebates.
LANCASTER - Robin Christiansen and her dog, Amy, have been partners for almost nine years. It's not unusual for people to see the pair go to the grocery store, bank or even to classes at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. They've been a team since they met through a program that pairs hearing-impaired people with dogs.

But now, all that could change. Amy has vanished without a trace from a family member's home in Lancaster.

July 2

EDWARDS AFB - A rare desert refuge for birds is caught in the middle of a stalemate between the Los Angeles County Sanitation District and Edwards Air Force Base.

Piute Ponds, located near Challenger Way between avenues D and E, and the sewage ponds off Avenue D from 20th Street West to Division Street, are rest stops for many marsh species - including herons, pelicans, sandpipers and American avocets. The ponds are manmade to hold treated sewage water piped in by the Los Angeles County Sanitation District.

LANCASTER - The message from 99¢ Only Store executives to the City of Lancaster is simple. They are not moving their store.

The city of Lancaster wants the 99¢ Only Store to move from its current location at 44665 Valley Central Way to make way for a Costco expansion in the same shopping center.

July 3

LANCASTER - Amy, the German shepherd missing from a Lancaster townhouse since Thursday, was reunited with her best pal Sunday.

The dog, trained to help her hearing-impaired owner Robin Christiansen, was dehydrated and under the care of a veterinarian Sunday for an injured hip.

July 4

LANCASTER - Maurice Palmer and Eugene Hill, veterans and members of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7283 in Lancaster, are planning a quiet Fourth of July - hot dogs and burgers at the Post and fireworks from afar.

"I don't need to go to any fireworks show. I've seen my share of bombs bursting in the air," said the 79-year old Palmer, a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and the Korean War.

July 5

EDWARDS AFB - It looks like a cross between a baby space shuttle and one of those weird drone-droid creatures in George Lucas' "Star Wars" film.

The X-37, the pairing of an experimental spacecraft and an X40A test suborbital atmospheric test craft, is a blending of talent from The Boeing Co., the U.S. Air Force and NASA.

July 6

MOJAVE - A car traveling the wrong way on a four-lane highway collided head-on with another vehicle early Wednesday, killing five people.

Both vehicles apparently exploded on impact, bursting into flames.

An investigator said some of the bodies were small and could have been those of children.

July 7

VAN NUYS - Michael and Kathleen Gentry drew prison sentences of six and four years Thursday, respectively, a month after a jury found them responsible for the 1996 death of their 15-year-old disabled daughter, Lindsay.

Superior Court Judge John Fisher could have sentenced the couple to 10 years each, but said part of the blame for Lindsay Gentry's demise lies with her healthcare provider and social workers.

July 8

SYLMAR - Rodney Woods, one of the three Littlerock High School athletes charged in the slaying of Christopher O'Leary, was released from Sylmar Juvenile Hall Friday and placed under house arrest.

Juvenile court Judge Morton Rochman ruled that Woods is "not a danger to society" and should "no longer be detained."

July 9

LANCASTER - Lancaster, Palmdale and California City could receive money from the state in a different way in the near future if a proposed tax-swapping bill is approved by the state Legislature.

A study recently completed by the Speaker's Commission on State-Local Government Finance calls for restoring funding to local government through a tax swap.

July 10

PALMDALE - With the wave of a magic wand, Harry Potter fever swept through the Antelope Valley this weekend, creating crowded bookstores, excited children and residents who were suddenly transformed into wizards.

The fever hit at midnight Friday, when the fourth book of the hugely popular series, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," at 752 pages, went on sale across the nation and in Great Britain.

July 11

PALMDALE - The scope of SR Technics America Ltd.'s impact on the region's aerospace sector came into focus on Monday. Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said the Swiss maintenance giant's expanding presence could herald the location of major commercial airline activity in northern Los Angeles County.

LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley High Schools Education Foundation failed Monday to meet a July 8 deadline set by the state attorney general's office to supply complete financial records for more than six years of operations. Despite missing the Monday deadline, the foundation escaped having its tax-exempt status stripped.

July 12

EDWARDS AFB - From the belly of a bloated Super Guppy at NASA Dryden Test Flight Center emerged perhaps the most critical safety feature of the international space station on Tuesday. The Super Guppy, a rare, brain-shaped, oversized-cargo carrier, delivered the X-38 V-131R - a scale model of the space station escape pod, or lifeboat, if you will.

LOS ANGELES - A measure to expand the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from five members to nine will appear on the county's Nov. 7 ballot. If the measure passes, the Antelope Valley stands to gain its own north county district.

July 13

LANCASTER - David Shamsian and his employees at the Lancaster Car Wash and Lube Express were hung out to dry Wednesday.

The workers had to stop their daily cleaning because of the mess they made.

Shamsian, owner of the car wash at 802 East Ave. J, drew the ire of neighbors and grabbed the attention of city officials, the Los Angeles County Fire Department Hazardous Materials Unit and the state Water Quality Control Board, Lahontan Region.

July 14

PALMDALE - Reckless driving by a parolee in a stolen Jeep allegedly resulted in a four-car, head-on crash that killed four people and injured three others on Sierra Highway near Avenue O-8 on Thursday afternoon.

LANCASTER - After fighting Lancaster outside the judicial system for the past nine months, 99¢ Only Stores filed a federal lawsuit against the city Wednesday as the retail corporation tries to keep its spot in the Valley Central shopping center.

The suit, filed in the Western Division of the Central District of California in U.S. District Court, seeks an injunction that will prohibit the Lancaster Redevelopment Agency from using eminent domain to force 99¢ Only Stores out of the property it leases in a shopping center on Valley Central Way.

Uploaded December 26, 2000