1998 The year in review

1998 Review January Part 2

PALMDALE - As many as 700 space-shuttle jobs will be cut from Florida and Houston this month, but no workforce reductions are planned in Palmdale, Alan Buis, according to a Boeing Space Systems Division spokesman. A projected $100 million cut in the space shuttle budget for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 is blamed for the layoffs.

CALIFORNIA CITY - Voters will be asked June 2 to approve a parcel tax to replace one they allowed to expire in June 1995. The $75 annual tax would generate about $3 million, a sum that would not only bridge the city's recurring $500,000 budget deficit but allow officials to make some long-needed improvements, sources say.

Jan. 17

EDWARDS AFB - Early troubles with B-2 radar-evading materials are no different than flaws discovered during development of other advanced aircraft, according to Brig. Gen. Bruce Carlson, and the shortcomings with the bomber's stealth attributes will be resolved by April 1999, when the final operational configuration of the B-2 is ready to be fielded.

LANCASTER - State and local officials begin mobilizing their resources in reaction to a declaration of war waged by Florida lawmakers over the next generation space shuttle. Both states are vying to be the launching site for the VentureStar Reusable Launch Vehicle, a wedge-shaped, reusable spaceship that will lift off from Earth without dropping its fuel tanks.

Jan. 18

LANCASTER - Residents of southern Antelope Valley queried on local health care services say they are concerned about a lack of urgent and late-night care for indigents, as well as issues of transportation and education. The Antelope Valley Healthcare District Board of Directors received the report of four focus groups conducted in November 1997 in conjunction with the district's research into health-care services for the south Valley.

Jan. 20

LANCASTER - Bar owners should fight to overturn the state's new law banning smoking in their establishments, not rely on loopholes in its language to keep cigarettes lit, state Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight says.

PALMDALE - Planning commissioners change the city's general plan and zoning to allow construction of a new Kaiser Permanente medical facility on a 15-acre site at the southeast corner of 45th Street East and Avenue S.

ANAHEIM - A Lancaster woman's job as a corrections officer may have motivated four men to shoot her to death last week as her stunned husband and stepdaughter looked on, authorities say. Although Anaheim police at first attributed the shooting to "road rage," they later said that since Elizabeth Ann Begaren's husband was driving that night, other motives were being investigated.

Jan. 21

LOS ANGELES - The "whodunnit for how long, and why" report that Los Angeles County Supervisors were expecting from a probe of dumping behind High Desert Hospital was inexplicably absent again. No reason was given for the delay of the report from the Health Department.

LANCASTER - Larger employers in the Antelope Valley will no longer be required to participate in a ride-sharing program, the Antelope Valley Air Pollution Control District governing board decides.

QUARTZ HILL - As if a perfect score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test weren't enough, Quartz Hill High School senior Matt Landis also aced the math portion of the SAT II. In December, the Valley Press reported on Landis' success on the math portion of the SAT college-entrance exam. He was recently notified he scored a perfect 800 on the more advanced SAT II test. The second perfect score was, again, in math. He also scored a 740 on the physics portion of the test.

Jan. 22

PALMDALE - The city's Board of Library Trustees agrees to impose new restrictions on minors using municipal library computers to access the Internet.

Jan. 23

PALMDALE - State and local officials learn there may be more than one launch site for the next-generation space shuttle, increasing California's chances of becoming a future "spaceport."

KINGMAN, Ariz. - The former manager of a Lancaster mobile home park could face the death penalty after being convicted of participating in the murders of a woman, her 15-year-old son and a family friend. Frank Winfield Anderson, 49, was found guilty of the August 1996 slayings of Leta Kagen, 37, her son, Robert Delahunt, and family friend Roland Wear, 50.

Jan. 24

LOS ANGELES - Metrolink riders may have to dig a little deeper into their pocketbooks, unless other options can offset the rising cost of operating the train, a Metrolink spokesman said. On the drawing board is a 13% systemwide fare hike spread over four years, with nearly half the increase coming in the fall.

PALMDALE - The saga of hidden cameras secretly filming teachers and students continued when Palmdale School District administrators discovered another hidden camera in a Palmdale school. District officials came under fire in August when three Mesquite Elementary School kindergarten teachers were secretly videotaped in their classrooms.

PALMDALE - Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon joins the fight over $60 million in transportation funds between the Antelope Valley and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). The announcement by the MTA board of directors that they were keeping money earmarked for cities to continue building the subway in Los Angeles aggravated Antelope Valley officials.

Jan. 25

LANCASTER - The problem is called "social promotion." The solution is either unifying area elementary and high school districts or requiring summer school for students not up to high school level, according to the Antelope Valley Union High School District Board of Trustees.

Jan. 27

LOS ANGELES - A former Lancaster Sheriff's Station deputy was sentenced to 10 months in custody for punching and pointing a handgun at a man being treated at Antelope Valley Hospital. U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian ordered Henry Meyers, 30, to spend five months in a federal prison and five months in a halfway house, according to spokesman Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

LANCASTER - Businessman LeeRoy Halley of Lancaster is named to the Antelope Valley Fair board of directors by Gov. Pete Wilson, replacing director Randy Jaqua whose four-year term expired three years ago.

LANCASTER - City Council candidate Marvin Crist said city officials are trying to intimidate him into dropping out of the April 14 Lancaster municipal election because of a potential conflict of interest. City officials denied Crist's claim, saying they only wanted to find out whether plans to relocate the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds might be stalled if Crist - the fair's marketing director - wins election to the two-year city council seat.

Jan. 28

PALMDALE - Reduced numbers of aerospace projects are causing layoffs nationwide, but Air Force Plant 42 employment continues to increase as work awarded in 1996 begins to take root. For the first time since employment topped 10,000 workers in July 1994, employment at Plant 42 has swelled to 9,800 people, said Lorraine Saddler, a Plant 42 spokeswoman.

LANCASTER - A professor who is suing Antelope Valley College was named to a teaching post through which he will oversee publication of the campus newspaper. English and journalism professor John Hall was named to teach the college's News Writing and Reporting class after the departure of journalism instructor Dennis Anderson.

LANCASTER - Lancaster Baptist Church welcomed Jessica Downey back into the congregation's midst on Sunday after 11 months of recovery from a serious car accident. During the worship service, the church family recognized Jessica and her family for their faith and courage.

Jan. 29

BAKERSFIELD - Kern County Attorney Bernard Barmann directed the county's libraries to immediately remove anti-pornography filtering devices from Internet computer terminals, following a challenge to filtering by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

LOS ANGELES - Searching students with a metal detector is a legitimate means of making public schools safer, a state appeals court ruled. Searches, conducted without evidence that a particular student is carrying a weapon, are "minimally intrusive," the 2nd District Court of Appeal said.

LANCASTER - When Charles Warren stole a security video camera outside a restaurant here early one recent morning, he failed to realize that his crime and his likeness had just been captured on a videotape somewhere, just waiting to be viewed by Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators.

The theft of the camera brought an abrupt end to Warren's nearly three-month crime spree in which he and two accomplices committed several burglaries at various Lancaster businesses along Avenue J, sheriff's deputies said.

Jan. 30

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley residents overwhelmingly favor dividing Los Angeles County and reducing bilingual programs in the state, according to a poll by state Assemblyman George Runner's office. The survey, included in a 1997-98 budget summary mailed by Runner's office to 50,000 households throughout the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys, showed 77% of respondents would support a breakup of L.A. County and 79% would favor decreasing the number of bilingual-education programs in California.

LANCASTER - A move to scrap the state's month-old ban on smoking in bars got a chilly reception in the state Senate, after passing the Assembly the night before. Despite a 42-24 Assembly vote to exempt bars and casinos from the workplace smoking ban, new Senate leader John Burton, D-San Francisco, said he opposes the bill and may require it to survive more committee votes to reach the Senate floor.

EDWARDS AFB - A collision of two military jets that killed a U.S.-British crew last October was caused by a pilot's attempt to avoid birds, according to a crash report released by the Air Force. The fatal collision occurred Oct. 22 over the Edwards test range as an F-16B Fighting Falcon and an T-38B Talon were serving as photographic chase planes for test drops of practice bombs by a B-1B Lancer bomber.

Jan. 31

LANCASTER - High Desert Hospital's top two administrators violated a county ordinance by allowing taxpayer-owned property to pile up outdoors for years and lose its resale value, according to a report by Los Angeles County health officials.