Palmdale School District admits surveillance

1998 The year in review

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Hospital's board of directors will review the compensation of Chief Executive Officer Robert Harenski and consider a supplemental retirement plan proposed under his new contract.

LANCASTER - Hundreds of brightly uniformed youngsters watch as city and county dignitaries dedicate the new Lancaster National Soccer Center. The 155-acre complex at 30th Street East and Avenue L will contain 33 fields when completed and will be the largest soccer center on the West Coast, and maybe the largest in the nation, according to Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts.

Feb. 3

LANCASTER - Round 2 of an anticipated string of three storms pounded communities in the western Antelope Valley, dropping 3 inches of rain Sunday and Monday at the Lake Elizabeth Mutual Water Co. Lake Hughes residents reported a similar total, and the Green Valley County Water District reported 1.8 inches of rain as of noon Monday.

LANCASTER - Fifty years ago, Douglas Aircraft test pilot John Martin made the first flight in a gleaming white rocket-plane that five years later would travel twice the speed of sound above Edwards Air Force Base.

Four of those who followed Martin in the cockpit of the swept-wing, needle-nosed Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket are to be here tomorrow for events commemorating the aircraft's flight anniversary and accomplishments which followed.
Feb. 4

LANCASTER - Hundreds of students are forced to stand in the rain for 30 minutes to an hour outside Antelope Valley High School as security guards conducted a dress-code sweep Tuesday morning. The tactic angered many parents who witnessed the outdoor lineup of some 2,000 students, who weren't allowed to enter the building until their clothing was checked for compliance with the school's dress code.

Feb. 5

PALMDALE - Boeing Co. will employ up to 200 more people here to assemble the prototypes of its joint strike fighter at Air Force Plant 42, the Valley Press learns.

LANCASTER - Retired Army Gen. Colin L. Powell, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to visit the Antelope Valley and deliver the keynote speech at the AV Board of Trade Outlook Conference today.

The event sold out more than two months ago. All 550 tickets were snatched up by Dec. 2, one day after they became available.

Powell's speech at the Essex Convention Center, "Management of Crisis and Change," focuses on the crucial issues facing the federal government and the defense industry.

PALMDALE - A Palmdale School District administrator admitted Wednesday that the district secretly purchased and installed surveillance cameras in several schools in an effort to catch one or more employees who may be responsible for $30,000 in theft and damage to school property.

The crimes have been committed during the course of a year and are probably the work of insiders, said Nancy Smith, superintendent of the largest school district in the Antelope Valley.

Feb. 6

ACTON - Acton-Agua Dulce School District trustees place Superintendent Joseph Crawford on administrative leave, according to a notice distributed to district employees. Assistant Supt. Don Banderas is acting superintendent.

EDWARDS AFB - A C-5 Galaxy lumbers into Edwards Air Force Base, carrying the first F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter for flight testing.

LANCASTER - California communities must prepare for two more rounds of military base closures, plus downsizing and mission cutbacks, Judy Ann Miller, California's military base retention director, warned community and business leaders at the Antelope Valley Outlook Conference.

LANCASTER - Retired Army Gen. Colin L. Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells the Business Outlook Conference that the fall of the Soviet Union triggered a painful evolution in the Antelope Valley and communities all over the United States.

Feb. 7

LANCASTER - Pounding rains from another Pacific storm hammer the Antelope Valley, flooding some streets, knocking out electric power and contributing to a serious injury crash on the Antelope Valley Freeway. The storm brought the Valley's third day of rainfall since the beginning of the month.

SACRAMENTO - Assemblyman George Runner introduces legislation he say will make the Antelope Valley a more viable candidate to become a spaceport. Runner's Assembly Bill 1765 would give a state sales tax break to companies launching vehicles into space by expanding the sales tax exclusion for all commercial space sites statewide.

LANCASTER - Cops from all over Los Angeles County are moving to Lancaster to take advantage of the Officer Next Door program started four months ago. The deal lets cops by homes for half-price.

Feb. 8

PALMDALE - Year-end summaries on money raised and spent by municipal candidates for the November election show that donors doled out $31,031 in late contributions to help political candidates with races for city offices and pay off debts of their campaigns. The total raised by the city's 13 mayoral and city council candidates was $97,587, with 32% of the money coming either just before or after the Nov. 4 election.

PALMDALE - Five men rammed a taxicab through the window of Gottschalks Department Store and quickly gathered $20,000 in merchandise before leading Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies on a foot chase through west Palmdale. Deputies nabbed one suspect from South Gate, but four accomplices escaped.

LANCASTER - Massive weekend flooding caused by the latest onslaught of winter rains sink part of a Metrolink bridge over Placerita Creek, forcing the cancellation Monday of all commuter rail service in and out of the Antelope Valley.

Feb. 11

PALMDALE - Dillard's department store officials want to open an outlet at the Antelope Valley Mall, but their plans hinge in part on action to be considered by the Palmdale City Council today. The council will consider subordinating an old $2 million loan to the mall so its development company can obtain a new $50 million loan.

SACRAMENTO - With 20,000 new aerospace jobs in the balance, Assemblyman George Runner Tuesday announces his bill to give contractors and subcontractors tax incentives for bringing the joint strike fighter project to California. The fighter project is expected to be the largest military contract in history, providing jobs for 20 years.

LANCASTER - Lancaster city officials step-up plans for a public skateboarding park now that skateboarders would be held liable for their actions. Assembly Bill 1296, approved in September, states that public entities and their employees are not liable to any person who skateboards in a public skateboard park because it is a "hazardous recreational activity."

LANCASTER - Longtime Antelope Valley resident and medical doctor Homer A. Rowell dies at age 79. He served in leadership positions at Antelope Valley Hospital throughout the 1950s and '60s, and at Mira Loma Hospital, now High Desert Hospital, throughout the 1970s.

Feb. 12

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley residents who love the idea of ditching Los Angeles County should rethink their position, according to 5th District Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

"The problem isn't the size of Los Angeles County," he said. "It's the financing."

LANCASTER - Despite nearly unanimous public opposition, attorneys for Los Angeles County will prepare a final draft of a proposed ordinance requiring trash service in unincorporated areas of the Antelope Valley. Trash pickup is already required within the city limits of Lancaster and Palmdale. The new law would require trash service outside city limits.

Feb. 13

PALMDALE - Underhanded, lowdown and dirty were among the words some speakers used in telling the City Council what they thought about the latest efforts by Antelope Valley College to establish a south Valley campus. Proponents of the campus development defended the newest approach, calling it the most practical.

College representatives were asking the council to let them seek annexation of 540 acres by eliminating the need for approval by about two dozen nearby homeowners.

PALMDALE - A collaborative effort by business, civic and educational leaders is the key to economic growth, members of the new Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance are told at their formative meeting.

Alliance members hear keynote speaker Doug Henton, coauthor of "Grassroots Leaders for a New Economy," a book detailing the Silicon Valley's success in combining the public and private sectors to improve the economy.

Feb. 14

PALMDALE - City Council planning and zoning changes lay the foundation for building a new medical facility on Palmdale's east side.

WRIGHTWOOD - Searchers find a 14-year-old snowboarder alive and conscious after nearly a week of exposure to the elements near Mountain High ski resort in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Feb. 15

PALMDALE - In response to "Gestapo-like tactics" used by Internal Revenue Service agents, Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon introduces a measure to establish a citizens' review board to oversee IRS seizures of taxpayers' property.

EDWARDS AFB - While eight other NASA centers are reducing staff and cutting budgets, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center is hiring people and maintaining a stable budget, center director Ken Szalai said.

GLENDALE - Tony LeVier is remembered as a man of honor and adventure, who helped people understand the skies. The Rev. Henry Hearns, vice mayor of Lancaster, officiates at the renowned test pilot's memorial service at Forest Lawn.

CAJON PASS - A head-on collision between a van and a pickup truck on a rainy mountain highway leaves four dead and seven others injured.