2000 The year in review

June 15-30

June 15

PALMDALE - The latest role Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works will play within the company's vast aerospace framework will be a return to its roots, one of the outfit's newly promoted chiefs said.

June 16

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Union High School District teachers may become some of the highest-paid teachers in Los Angeles County.Antelope Valley Union High School District trustees tentatively ratified a new contract and salary schedule Thursday, which gives new teachers coming into the district a $9,353 pay hike and existing teachers an 11% salary increase over two years.

June 17

SACRAMENTO (AP) - There are perhaps three certainties in life at the state Capitol - death, taxes and budget deadlocks - and the Legislature is in the midst of the third.For the 14th year in a row, lawmakers failed Thursday to approve a budget by the constitutional deadline. This time the delay was caused by a dispute over tax cuts.

June 18

CHINA LAKE NAVAL AIR WEAPONS STATION - Giving thumbs up to an aircraft he says will revolutionize flight, Gen. James L. Jones, commandant of the Marine Corps and the nation's top Marine, on Saturday flew aboard an MV-22 Osprey helicopter hybrid like the one that crashed and killed 19 Marines in April.

By taking the flight, Gen. James L. Jones, commandant of the Marine Corps, made good on a promise to ride in the aircraft before he let any more Marines board it.

June 19

LANCASTER - Now that nearly all of the property in the Lancaster Business Park at Sierra Highway and Avenue L has been sold, the city is focusing its efforts at drawing business to the Fox Field Industrial Corridor, a mostly vacant stretch of land on the city's northwest side.

The city's capital improvements budget for the 2000-2001 fiscal year allocates $10.6 million for infrastructure improvements at the 8,235-acre site, which stretches from the Antelope Valley Freeway to 70th Street West. The north and south boundaries of the corridor are Avenue E and Avenue H, with a small portion of the project's east side jutting north to Avenue D.

June 20

LOS ANGELES - The third time was the charm for Antelope Valley College president Linda Spink, who landed a new job at Los Angeles Harbor College after two attempts for a college president slot in Northern California.

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Friday the city of Palmdale must allow voters the final say on whether a super Wal-Mart should be built on the east side. The judge's ruling reverses a decision by Palmdale officials that rejected a petition reportedly signed by more than 7,000 residents opposing construction of a Wal-Mart on 47th Street East and Avenue S.

June 21

LOS ANGELES - The Board of Supervisors again balked at the notion of expansion on Tuesday, but the California legislators who have muscled the issue onto the Los Angeles County agenda appear poised to go beyond the board to get their way.

The issue of expanding the board from five members to nine has engendered strife between board members who claim it's the county's right to judge its own representation and state legislators who argue that without state intervention the board will remain a political monopoly.

June 22

PALMDALE - Democratic Gov. Gray Davis is lobbying to bring final production of the joint strike fighter to Palmdale. Citing potential cost savings of $2.2 billion, Davis has invited Defense Secretary William Cohen to tour Plant 42.

June 23

EDWARDS AFB - The newest race to space isn't against time; it's a race against the cost of delivering payloads into space. It's a race NASA is turning to experimental X-planes and its Dryden Flight Research Center division to win. X-planes are experimental aircraft NASA is developing in hopes of creating other craft that will cut the cost of delivering payloads into space.

June 24

LANCASTER - Spending $100 billion is more odious a task than one might think. Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, a lead budget maker, recently returned to his district, relating war stories of piecing together the biggest budget in the history of the biggest state.

The Thursday passage of the budget out of the Assembly marked the end of a several-week stretch during which Runner and other budget leaders integrated the multifarious interests of hundreds of lobbyists and millions of constituents, each hollering for their special slice of the budget pie.

June 25

CALIFORNIA CITY - State and federal governments are getting in the way of Kern County's economic progress and residents need to step forward to help turn things around, Kern County leaders said Saturday morning during the East Kern Summit. County Supervisor Steve Perez said the county has given the state about $300 million in property taxes since 1992, when state government started collecting the money during a budget crisis.

June 26

AGUA DULCE - The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has released its final environmental impact statement, including its preferred alternative, to a proposal by Transit Mixed Concrete to open a sand and gravel mine in Soledad Canyon.

June 27

LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley College Board of Trustees announced Monday they had selected Patricia Sandoval as interim president, replacing outgoing President Linda Spink.

June 28

LOS ANGELES - The same Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors who last week bristled at the idea of placing board expansion before a county vote did an aboutface Tuesday. Supervisors now appear ready to put the issue on the Nov. 7 general election ballot.

PALMDALE - A 77-year-old west Palmdale mobile home park resident was hospitalized early Tuesday after being traumatized and beaten by a home-invasion robber.

June 29

PALMDALE - A 9-year-old Cactus Elementary School student was struck by a pickup truck and killed Wednesday as she attempted to cross a street on the way to school. Myisha Adams was killed about 8:30 a.m. as she was crossing Avenue R near Hastings Street on the way to school from her home in the 37800 block of Cardiff Street.

SACRAMENTO - Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush resigned Wednesday, buckling under the threat of impeachment for misusing insurance settlement funds including money meant for earthquake victims.

LANCASTER - Executives of the 99¢ Only Stores won't be moving without a fight. The face-off erupted "This is going to be a decade-long fight," 99¢ Only Stores attorney Chris Sutton said. 'You are going to face antitrust lawsuits of $10 million. Why can't they expand other places?"

Sutton's comments came after the Lancaster City Council, seated as the Redevelopment Agency, approved Costco's expansion in the Valley Central shopping center at the expense of the 99¢ Only Store.

June 30

LANCASTER - Many Valley residents lost their cool Wednesday as they faced stifling heat made worse when air conditioners were cut off in the name of energy conservation. The heat caused the state's electricity controllers to declare a second-stage emergency Wednesday as energy reserves fell below 5%.

Uploaded December 26, 2000