1998 The year in review

State smoking ban in bars opens 1990

FRESNO - Giant Tejon Ranch takes on giant California condors to protect property rights on the company's 270,000-acre mountain spread. The company files a federal lawsuit to keep Endangered Species Act requirements from hampering developments in the Tehachapi Mountains.

Jan. 2

LOS ANGELES - New Year's revelers boo and rebel against a new anti-smoking law that bans lighting up in California's bars. The law makes California's no-smoking rules the strictest in the nation.

LANCASTER - Karli Anne Nicole Rubcic, the first Antelope Valley baby of the new year is born to Peter and Rhonda Rubcic of Palmdale at 12:51 a.m. Jan. 1, 1998, in the maternity ward at Antelope Valley Hospital.

Jan. 3

LANCASTER - Authorities announce the capture of two men believed partially responsible for the most far-reaching local crime spree this decade, then ask Antelope Valley residents for help in locating the third and most dangerous member of the gang, still at large.

Jan. 4

PALMDALE - Members of the City Council remain divided in their opinions on home-based businesses. The subject was broached during a business summit between members of the council and officials of the Palmdale Chamber of Commerce. Since the city began approving home-based businesses in 1989, it issued 3,252 permits.

LANCASTER - High Desert Hospital is on the hot seat for wrongful dumping after a former employee complained that furniture, gurneys, building materials and other items have been discarded for years in an enormous pit behind the hospital.
Jan. 6

Traffic deaths in the Antelope Valley in 1997 were down 15.4% from the previous year, the most dramatic dip coming from Lancaster, records show.

In 1997 there were 55 traffic fatalities in the Los Angeles County portion of the Antelope Valley, down from 65 in 1996.

PALMDALE - Four people die on the rain-soaked Antelope Valley Freeway when a southbound car skids across the divider and into oncoming traffic.

Jan. 7

LOS ANGELES - Illegal dumping behind High Desert Hospital prompts the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to demand an investigation of those responsible for the Lancaster mess, as well as an inquiry into disposal practices countywide.

LANCASTER - Hospitals and pharmacies in the Antelope Valley have overflowed with local residents suffering from flu-like symptoms, forcing hospitals to set up extra beds while patients wait in unusually long lines.

Jan. 8

LANCASTER - An exhaustive eight-month study of the aerospace industry's statewide economic influence is being hailed as a powerful new tool in the fight for incentives to retain and expand aerospace contractor work in California. The study, produced by a special task force and staff of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade, found more than 20,000 California companies provide goods and services to the aerospace industry - including 7,925 in Los Angeles County alone.

PALMDALE - Uninsured patients fill the waiting room of the city's new health-care clinic after its doors swing open for the first time.

Jan. 9

LANCASTER - Citing lack of support from Los Angeles County, Assemblyman George Runner says he is withdrawing his bill to abolish state-mandated priorities on courthouse construction in the county.

Assembly Bill 124, scheduled to be taken up in the Assembly Judiciary Committee next week, would have removed one of the major impediments to courthouse construction in the Antelope Valley.

LANCASTER - A new law requiring school buses to flash their red lights at all times when loading and unloading children has created traffic jams at schools, and could do the same on streets and highways, a school bus executive says.

Jan. 10

PALMDALE - Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, launches his own investigation into abusive treatment of taxpayers by IRS agents. At an informal two-hour hearing in Palmdale City Hall, a packed house sat rapt as five Valley residents charged that they had been terrorized, had their bank accounts illegally seized, or were interrogated by IRS and Secret Service agents who blatantly disregarded civil rights.

LANCASTER - Rite Aid Corp. announces plans to build a 1-million-square-foot regional distribution and customer support center in the Fox Field Industrial Corridor. Opening is expected in fall of 1999.

LANCASTER - Tracor Flight Systems in Palmdale will enjoy two decades of stability requiring expansion and hundreds of new employees. That healthy economic outlook is a direct result of Boeing Co. announcement that the firm will rename the MD-95 as the Boeing 717-200. Boeing intends to use the 100-seat aircraft as its flagship of smaller capacity passenger jets. Officials also predict a need for as many as 2,500 new jetliners.

Jan. 11

EDWARDS AFB - Three servicemen are killed in an apparent double murder-suicide. One airman shot a fellow airman and a security policeman before turning the gun on himself.

Jan. 13

SACRAMENTO - Assemblyman George Runner's measure to create more aerospace jobs in California receives approval from the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.

LANCASTER - More than a year after it closed, Lancaster's juvenile delinquency court reopens with its new leader announcing an ambitious plan to curb the Antelope Valley's growing problem of young repeat criminals.

Jan. 14

PALMDALE - The Antelope Valley Local Development Corp. has been withholding leads on prospective new businesses from Palmdale while passing them to Lancaster, Mayor Jim Ledford charges. As a result, the Palmdale City Council will consider severing its business-marketing relationship with the group headed by Vern Lawson Jr.

LANCASTER - The 1998 tournament schedule at Lancaster City Park's Big Eight softball complex is expected to funnel nearly $3 million into area businesses, Mayor Frank Roberts predicts.

PALMDALE - Aerospace officials and community leaders thank Lt. Col. Peter "Pete" Drinkwater Tuesday for his community service and leadership as Air Force Plant 42's commander. Drinkwater, who served as commander for 4 1/2 years, retires this week. His successor will be Lt. Col. Robert Catlin.

LANCASTER - An investigation by the Secretary of State's Office into allegations of ballot-box stuffing during the city's April 1996 election "did not reveal any criminal activity," city officials announce.

Jan. 15

LOS ANGELES - More than $2 million in state transportation funds were collectively hijacked from the waiting arms of the Antelope Valley Wednesday, according to Greg Matranga, district director for Assemblyman George Runner.

A lion's share of $760 million in transportation dollars earmarked by California legislators for the state's local transportation agencies was taken by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) to plug a hole in its subway budget, Matranga said.

SACRAMENTO - Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts testifies before the Assembly Local Government Committee, speaking in support of a revenue-sharing amendment by Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster.

Under Assembly Constitutional Amendment 10, local governments could split revenues from a single business, such as an auto dealer or large retailer, without going to public vote.

PALMDALE - City officials vote unanimously to give the job of promoting advantages of doing business in Palmdale to a non-local marketing firm. The decision takes the job away from the Antelope Valley Local Development Corp. (AVLDC), a non-profit Lancaster entity under contract to do the marketing for the AV Regional Partnership.