A private company is setting its sights on the far western Antelope Valley for a 500-bed mediumsecurity prison. Cornell Corrections Inc. identified land for a $20 million prison outside Gorman, about 45 miles west of Lancaster along Interstate 5.
Today we present the first installment of our annual Year in Review, covering news events from January 1996. The series will cover one month per day until Dec. 30.
Jan. 2
A private company is setting its sights on the far western Antelope Valley for a 500-bed mediumsecurity prison. Cornell Corrections Inc. identified land for a $20 million prison outside Gorman, about 45 miles west of Lancaster along Interstate 5.
LANCASTER - Just three minutes into the New Year, Amanda Jacklyn Vander Hyde becomes the third generation of Vander Hydes living in the Antelope Valley.
Jan. 3
LANCASTER - A pair of deputies patrolling high-crime areas in a so-called "bomber" car racks up such an impressive arrest record that city officials will double the effort.
Ted Brown, longtime superintendent of the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District, is told his contract will not be renewed.
Jan. 4
LANCASTER - Antelope Valley residents associated with a Montana group of antigovernment radicals tried to pass more than $1 million in bogus checks at local businesses in November and December, the FBI confirms.
An order of Carmelite nuns plans to build a convent, chapel, library and day-care center just outside the commercial center of Lake Los Angeles.
LANCASTER - The city takes the offensive in battling other municipalities and states for construction of the next generation of space vehicles - the X-33.
Jan. 5
PEARBLOSSOM - Federal investigators determine that leaking fuel lines probably caused a firefighting aircraft to explode over the San Gabriel Mountains last August, killing three people.
SACRAMENTO - Curt Pringle is elected speaker of the California Assembly on Thursday, giving Republicans the power and symbolic post they haven't held in more than an quarter of a century.
Jan. 6
LANCASTER - New unemployment claims plummeted 32% in December, but that drop didn't help the 2,497 Antelope Valley residents who filed for unemployment benefits, latest reports from the state Employment Development Department show.
EDWARDS AFB - NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's 450 civilian workers receive the best news they've had in a month - they return to work after the federal government shutdown.
Jan. 7
LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley Fair, a financial disaster poster child a year ago, is the comeback kid in 1996. Fairgrounds Manager Dan Jacobs says that when the numbers are in for December, the books will show fairgrounds operations ended the year $100,000 in the black.
A mother's protest led Del Sur Middle School to drop its policy of charging dance attendees a higher price if they come stag instead of as a couple.
Jan. 9
LOS ANGELES - Antelope Municipal Court Judge Richard E. Spann will lead the Los Angeles County Municipal Court Judges' Association this year.
Palmdale Regional Airport's future as a major terminal is set back as Los Angeles officials say they are considering extending Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) into Santa Monica Bay to expand operations.
PALMDALE - Officials from the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District worry that a planned 958-unit mobile home park will choke their overcrowded, financially strapped district with more than 550 students.
Jan. 10
The administrator of High Desert Hospital is leaving after less than eight months on the job, citing a desire to spend more time with his family.
LANCASTER - Desert Inn co-owner Gary Fischer resigns as the city's business-community representative to the Antelope Valley Regional Partnership.
LANCASTER - A supervisor at Lancaster state prison is seriously injured when an inmate beats him over the head with a metal tool.
Jan. 11
PALMDALE - The boozing "Red Eye Bandit," who allegedly robbed 10 banks since 1994, including eight in the Antelope Valley, is identified as a Palmdale resident.
Jan. 12
PALMDALE - Two private investors fail to convince the City Council that they deserve redevelopment money to build a senior apartment complex at 30th Street East, across from McAdam Park.
PALMDALE - The city is preparing for battle in its quest to bulldoze an old strip mall on the west side of Sierra Highway. The City Council, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency, votes 5-0 to use power of eminent domain to gain control of 11 properties in a shopping center between Palmdale Boulevard and Avenue Q.
Jan. 13
LOS ANGELES - Mel Grussing, former administrator of a Long Beach comprehensive health center, has been named to head the county's High Desert Hospital in Lancaster.
LANCASTER - Two-term Lancaster School District trustee Melinda Stephens-Bukey, an outspoken opponent of Proposition 187's effect on immigrant schoolchildren, announces her resignation.
Jan. 14
A private company says it dropped the far western Antelope Valley as a candidate for a 500bed, medium-security prison.
LANCASTER - Southern California Edison Co. plans to close its main service office here and expand the number of contract agencies that accept customer payments.
Jan. 16
LANCASTER - Rexhall Industries welcomes about 100 employees to work at Lancaster's largest private manufacturing operation in a city-backed industrial park at Sierra Highway and Avenue H.
PALMDALE - A 32-year-old Palmdale man is held for the murder of his 19-month-old daughter, who died from injuries she sustained when he allegedly threw her against a wall two days earlier.
NORTHRIDGE - Retired Lancaster physician Dr. Palmer Swanson, 60, succumbs to injuries he suffered two days earlier when his single-engine plane crashed into the ground about five miles north of Fox Airfield.
Jan. 17
LANCASTER - The city's Redevelopment Agency will use a $4 million federal loan to help build a $7.9 million railroad overpass at Avenue H and Sierra Highway.
The Los Angeles County Probation Department says it will deliver 790 pink slips this week as it prepares to close all juvenile camps Feb. 4.
Jan. 18
LANCASTER - A behindthe-scenes fight for control of city government spills out before the public when City Council members Michael Singer and Deborah Shelton slip into green Japanese headbands before losing on a proposal to allow council vacancies to be filled by appointment.
The headbands, called hatsumakis, were given to Singer and Shelton for use in "tough times," Shelton says before voting.
A plan to store nuclear fuel rods in Nevada has sparked local opposition on the grounds they would be shipped through the Antelope Valley.
LANCASTER - Westside Union School District trustees name Allan Sacks, 56, as the district's new superintendent. Sacks, 56, previously worked as the district's assistant superintendent of business services.
Jan. 19
LANCASTER - A tanning salon on 10th Street West surprises an estimated 650 new and long-term customers when the owner closes the doors unexpectedly during the weekend.
PALMDALE - The B-2 isn't going to Bosnia, but the White House is considering sending the $493 million budgeted for more stealth bombers to help pay for the estimated $2 billion deployment and operations there.
Jan. 20
LANCASTER - Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrest one of two men sought in connection with an early-morning home invasion robbery in which four women were raped.
Jan. 21
PALMDALE - Cable viewers who've been wishing for "The History Channel" can soon rejoice, but there's some bad news too: the rates are going up.
With long prison terms looming, more jail inmates in Los Angeles County are running for the fences. Forty-five high-security inmates tried to escape last year, up from seven in 1994 and eight in 1993. Fifteen succeeded in their escapes, compared to only one in 1994 and two in 1993.
Jan. 23
Antelope Valley traffic fatalities last year increased by more than one-third over 1994, newly released figures show.
Seventy-eight people died as a result of traffic accidents in 1995, compared to 57 in 1994, according to statistics from the California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. That amounts to a nearly 37% increase.
LANCASTER - Tony F. Welch, president of the Antelope Valley Union High School board of trustees and former commander of the Antelope Valley sheriff's substation, is dead at age 53, following a lengthy battle with cancer.
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies make seven arrests during the weekend at two alleged methamphetamine labs - one in Littlerock and the other in Llano.
Jan. 24
PALMDALE - The Antelope Valley's commuter rail service is still building steam, growing from an average 2,591 riders per day at the end of 1994 to 3,069 at the end of last year, Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo says.
Jan. 25
About 60 employees of the Antelope Valley's three First Interstate branch offices are wondering about job security after the success of Wells Fargo's hostile takeover bid. Company spokesmen from both banks say it is too early to know which branches will close.
SACRAMENTO - State Assemblyman William J. "Pete" Knight wins a political victory when an Assembly committee quickly approves a measure that would ban same-sex marriages in California.
The measure now goes to the full Assembly, where Knight predicts passage next week. It faces a tougher fight, however, in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley is averaging more than one home-invasion robbery a month since August.
Jan. 26
EDWARDS AFB - NASA Dryden Flight Research Center is testing an electrically powered device that can significantly reduce the weight, costs and maintenance of future aircraft, says Joel Sitz, project manager.
Jan. 27
LANCASTER - A felon facing a long prison sentence for burglary eludes a dozen Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies after slipping out of his handcuffs.
The presence of the escapee in the quiet residential neighborhood prompts Monte Vista School officials to cordon off the elementary school.
LANCASTER - A capacity audience jams the Lancaster High School theater for a service honoring the memory of high school district board president and former Antelope Valley Sheriff's Station commander Tony Welch, who died of cancer Jan. 21.
California Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle enjoys a triumphant homecoming to the Antelope Valley with a strong attack on his Democratic predecessor and a vigorous defense of themes championed by Republican Party conservatives.
Jan. 28
LANCASTER - More than one-fifth of Lancaster households live in low-income conditions, according to a city report.
The report, based on 1990 U.S. Census figures, shows 7,343, or 22%, of the city's 33,112 households fell into low- or extremely low-income categories. Some 16% fell into the moderate-income category and 9% in the middle-income category.
Jan. 30
LOS ANGELES - The Antelope Valley Sheriff's Station reports a 10.3% drop in child-abuse investigations during 1994 and dropped its dubious title as the station with the most cases per capita in the county.
Jan. 31
PALMDALE - Legislation aimed at helping California aerospace companies compete with other states is expected to be approved this session.
LOS ANGELES - Truants caught in unincorporated county areas now face tickets of up to $250 if caught by sheriff's deputies.