May 1996

Valley moves to protect aerospace jobs, and a few toads

May 1

PALMDALE - Rather than fight for production of more B-2 bombers, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon said he'll work to include $296 million for aircraft armaments in next year's defense budget.

The bombers are too controversial with the November election approaching, the Santa Clarita Republican said Tuesday. Last session, a House vote for additional B-2 funds passed by just three votes.

PALMDALE - Another state again has Antelope Valley aerospace work in its sights and the target is Rockwell North American Aircraft Division's B-1B bomber modification work at Plant 42.

At stake in the skirmish between the company and Oklahoma's Tinker Air Force Base are 450 jobs and as much as $250 million in economic impact, said Mike Mathews, a Rockwell spokesman.

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley residents want BioGro to fully enclose its proposed 67-acre compost plant or take it elsewhere.

The more than 100 people who met at the Essex House hotel repeated contentions that mitigation measures proposed in the project's environmental impact report are inadequate.

May3

LANCASTER - A plan to reshuffle some Westside Union School District students to relieve crowding and fill empty classrooms is drawing protests from some parents. Fifteen parents picketed Thursday outside the district office at 70th Street West and Avenue G, and some plan to return today from 8 to 10 a.m.

QUARTZ HILL - Three separate brush fires broke out Thursday afternoon, scorching more than 160 acres and keeping Los Angles County firefighters busy for five hours. The largest blaze, fanned by 20 mph winds, burned near Quartz Hill High School and charred 120 acres.

May 4

LANCASTER - High school district trustees have given up on requiring uniforms or strict dress codes in time for the 1996-97 school year.

Last fall, the Antelope Valley Union High School District board began studying whether students should wear uniforms districtwide.

The board of trustees gave in and approved the proposals made by district schools - most of which changed dress standards only slightly.

May 5

LANCASTER - The City Council will be asked Monday to approve a hate-crimes response plan and place it under the purview of the Antelope Valley AntiCrime Committee.

If the councils of Lancaster and Palmdale approve, the committee - a 20-member panel of government, school, law enforcement and court officials on the city, county and state levels - will be charged with implementing the response plan to facilitate the reporting, investigation and prosecution of local hate crimes, Assistant City Manager Dennis Davenport said.

May 7

QUARTZ HILL - Store owner Gary Hardy is no stranger to danger. His Hardy's Liquor and Grocery Store has been robbed several times, but never without him or his wife Helen putting up a fight. Just after 9 p.m., while Gary was ringing up a customer, a man thrust a knife into his chest and made a grab for the cash in the register.

May 8

LANCASTER - A voting block composed of councilmen Frank Roberts, Henry Hearns and Jim Jeffra barred Councilman Michael Singer from every position of power Monday during the City Council's continued process of reorganization That began two weeks ago when the same council majority prevented Councilwoman Deborah Shelton from rotating into the vice mayor's seat.

"I have a particular problem with headbands, and I have a particular problem with radio stations," Jeffra said. "I don't believe that it's appropriate for leaders in this community to display such things."

EDWARDS AFB - Kern County is offering $700,000 to help bring work on the next-generation space shuttle to the Antelope Valley. The offer - the latest component of a comprehensive regional incentive package - comes as the deadline approaches for three competing aerospace teams to submit their X-33 proposals to NASA.
May 9

PALMDALE - Another unmanned prototype of Lockheed Martin's proposed spy craft, DarkStar, could be ready to fly in 1997 if the reasons for the first craft's crash can be determined and special part orders can be placed and filled soon enough.

The crash of the first DarkStar prototype, a drone being operated by mission controllers, occurred shortly after takeoff April 22.
May 10

PALMDALE - Two competing aerospace companies will help Rockwell retain the B-1B maintenance work that Air Force officials are considering consolidating at Tinker Air Force Base.

Representatives from Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and Northrop Grumman urged state officials Wednesday to recognize the importance of the B-1B modification work, in addition to contracts for the F-117 and B-2.
May 11

Five schools in the Antelope Valley Union High School District will have new principals by July 1.

Principals are leaving Quartz Hill, Palmdale and Littlerock high schools, as well as Desert Winds continuation school and Antelope Valley Adult School. Some will serve as principals elsewhere in the district. The rest will take other district positions.
May 12

LANCASTER - Authorities searched again Saturday for signs of a body that a man in bloodsplattered clothing told them was placed somewhere in the desert. Leonard Earl Bates, 27, was arrested on suspicion of murder after reportedly confessing to killing a woman early Friday morning. He was being held without bail as the investigation continued.
May 14
LANCASTER - A three-day search for the victim of a claimed homicide ended Sunday when authorities unearthed the body of a 37-year-old Palmdale woman from a shallow desert grave.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrested Leonard Earl Bales Friday after he allegedly bragged to a third party that he had killed a woman. It wasn't until 6 p.m. Sunday that authorities discovered the body of Deborah Lewis buried just east of where they had searched all day Friday and much of Saturday.
May 15

PALMDALE - City and water officials fear using animal manure, including bio-solids, on Palmdale Regional Airport land could contaminate ground water through abandoned wells.

Officials are protesting a proposal to lease between 3,000 and 4,000 acres of land to Stanford Research and Development Co. of Hanford, to grow crops such as field corn, alfalfa, grain hay, fiber crops and nuts. Effluent and biosolids - or sewage sludge - would be used to fertilize the land.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich was handed a victory Tuesday when the Board of Supervisors refused to halt plans for a new Antelope Valley courthouse.

Supervisors voted 5-0, with little discussion, to order the public works department to draft a contract for design plans for a courthouse near Avenue M and 10th Street West.
MAY 16

LOS ANGELES - Hi Vista developer Marshall Redman faces criminal charges for selling hundreds of low-income people desert land on which they cannot build.

Redman, 67, pleaded not guilty to seven counts of grand theft and filing fraudulent documents, a Los Angeles Municipal Court clerk said.
LANCASTER - It wasn't long ago that Les Uhazy spent much of his time with parasites.

But on Wednesday, surrounded by his human peers, the professor of microbiology at Antelope Valley College became the institution's 14th Scholar in Residence.

LANCASTER - Constance E. Webb, assistant superintendent of educational services, has been appointed superintendent of the Eastside Union School District.

Webb will take over Aug. 1, the same day Superintendent Charles Gastineau retires. Her appointment comes just a month and a half after Gastineau announced his retirement, citing unspecified medical reasons.
May 19

PALMDALE - A pioneering maker of devices that allow disabled people to communicate has plans to expand, adding about 400 jobs to the Antelope Valley's economy over the next five years.

Words Plus, creator of the machine that enables renowned, wheelchair-using physicist Stephen Hawking to "speak" via computer-synthesized speech, "is going to be staffing in a big way," said Walt Woltosz, the company president. The company could move into larger quarters as soon as July, hiring 100 people within the first 12 months.
May 21

LANCASTER - The Board of Trustees at Antelope Valley College ended their yearlong, nationwide search for a replacement for retiring President Allan Kurki by naming the college's first woman president in its 67-year history.

Board President Don Ross announced just after 7:30 p.m. Monday at a board meeting at the campus that Linda M. Spink would replace Kurki, who is retiring Aug. 29.

LANCASTER - Ufracio "Frankie" Gutierrez, one of seven brothers who own some of the Valley's most successful Mexican restaurants, was charged with murder Monday stemming from the shooting of his wife in front of the couple's three young children.

The 38-year-old Lancaster man remained in custody without bail.
May 23
LANCASTER - Federal investigators are questioning teachers, administrators, students and parents at Lancaster Elementary School to learn the circumstances behind a complaint of racial harassment.

The San Francisco-based investigators from the Office of Civil Rights, a division of the U.S. Department of Education, "are on-site now."
May 24
PALMDALE - A 79-year-old Lancaster man was killed Thursday when his car smashed through a crossing arm and was broadsided by a Metrolink train at Sixth Street East and Sierra Highway.

The man apparently didn't see the gate, the flashing lights or hear the whistle warning of an approaching train, witnesses said. His name was withheld until his family could be notified.

Tom Naylor of Lancaster was one of 120 passengers returning home on the commuter train, which was scheduled to arrive in Lancaster at 5:27 p.m., eight minutes after the accident occurred.

LANCASTER - BioGro representatives have rejected every plan the Rosamond Community Services District board has proposed to reduce the composting facility's possible effect on the community.

The board suggested measures to reduce contamination of the Antelope Valley's water supply and the 67-acre plant's production of airborne pathogens, dust and odors.
May 25
LITTLEROCK - The endangered arroyo toads need some breeding room.

To that end, a portion of Littlerock Creek will be closed during the Memorial Day weekend to offroad vehicle enthusiasts, picnickers and sun worshipers.

This emergency closure, scheduled through midnight Monday, affects the portion of Littlerock Creek between Santiago Creek and a point a half-mile upstream from Basin Campground.

PALMDALE - Air Force officials signed a contract Friday for Northrop Grumman to transform the first production-line B-2 into a functional stealth bomber.

The contract is for $150 million, but the refurbishments could add up to as much as $493 million, said Rudy de Leon, Air Force undersecretary. The funding comes from stealth bomber appropriations in the 1996 defense budget.
May 26

BEVERLY HILLS - A businessman accused of massive land fraud targeting Spanish-speakers in the Antelope Valley is back in business developing vacant desert land.

Marshall Redman sold land to immigrants who said they were unable to get building permits or sell their property and unable to get electricity, water, telephone and other services.

Redman and his companies agreed last year to turn over about $30 million in assets and pay $580,000 to settle a civil lawsuit. He pleaded not guilty last week to seven criminal counts of grand theft and filing false documents.

PALMDALE - The space shuttle prototype used in landing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1970s might be coming back to the Antelope Valley.

NASA engineers are studying whether the prototype can be used to determine how new upgrades fit shuttles rather than disturbing an orbiter preparing for a mission, said Ed Campion, NASA space shuttle spokesman.

With the judgment day fast approaching for state-mandated trash reduction, two Kern County cities are far ahead of the curve.

Tehachapi and California City have not only achieved the onefourth cut required by 1995, they have exceeded the 50% cut required by the year 2000, according to their waste hauler, Benz Sanitation.
May 28

LANCASTER - Meeting in an hour-long emergency session on Memorial Day, Antelope Valley Hospital directors voted 3-1 to accept the resignation of fellow director Harvey A. Birsner, M.D.

Birsner's single-sentence, 25word letter to the board gave no explanation for his resignation, effective at the end of the business day last Friday.
May 29

LANCASTER - Ufracio "Frankie" Gutierrez, the Lancaster restaurateur charged with killing his wife, irked a judge Tuesday when he asked for a Spanishspeaking interpreter despite evidence he understands English.

The request during Gutierrez's morning arraignment angered Municipal Court Judge Chesley N. McKay Jr., who tossed the defendant's thick case file aside and ordered an armed bailiff to remove Gutierrez from court.
May 30

PALMDALE - About 135 people at Rockwell's shuttle modification facility will be laid off in June as work wraps up on space shuttle Discovery.

However, with the Endeavour shuttle scheduled to arrive Aug. 9 for similar modifications and maintenance, much of the laid-off workforce at the Plant 42 facility may be back on the job in September, said Alan Buis, a Rockwell spokesman.

The facility employs 625 people, about 275 of whom work on shuttle modification and maintenance. The additional 350 concentrate on making modification kits, spare parts and hardware, Buis said.
May 31

LANCASTER - Unlike Palmdale, Lancaster won't have to resort to layoffs to make this year's municipal budget balance, Finance Director Gary Hill said Thursday.

Instead, the 1996 fiscal program "will be status quo," Hill said.

The city will have a General Fund budget of nearly $31.5 million, including a 10% reserve, according to budget documents.