1999 The year in review

Mach 17-30

March 17

PALMDALE - Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon launched an inquiry into an "unused" $4.6 million federal allocation to begin work on linking Avenue P-8 in Palmdale to Highway 138. After discovering that the project was listed by Caltrans as inactive with no date of continuation given or no explanation of where the money went, McKeon sent a query to Tony Harris, director of Caltrans District 7.

LANCASTER - It wasn't a case backlog that bogged down the Lancaster courthouse Monday. Rather, it was a backlog of sewage. Raw sewage poured out of the antiquated inmate restrooms behind the municipal court area beginning about 1:30 p.m., forcing a lengthy delay in proceedings in some courtrooms.

LANCASTER - Steve Schmidt has resigned his post as the top administrator at Lancaster Community Hospital (LCH) to take a similar job in Redding. After 13 years of service, his last day at LCH will be Friday, March 27.

March 18

SACRAMENTO - Assemblyman George Runner was named vice-chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, giving him a final say on California's budget and the power to kill state measures and resurrect those that died before hitting the floor. Bringing more aerospace business to California will continue to be one of his top priorities, Runner said, but it will be easier to accomplish because of his new post.

LOS ANGELES - The Antelope Valley is one step closer to an expanded state-sanctioned enterprise zone, due to a unanimous vote of support from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Palmdale and Lancaster have already asked the state to expand the multi-city zone, in which employers may receive hiring and tax credits.

March 19

PALMDALE - Antelope Valley mass transit users could get a tax break from a measure adopted by the U.S. Senate last week, said to be the largest public works proposal in the nation's history. A provision attached to the $214 million measure, authorized by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), would allow employers to give workers up to $65 a month in tax-free masstransit benefits in lieu of salary.

March 20

SACRAMENTO - First-term state Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight was named to the No. 5 Republican post in the Senate, granting him a share of the power to ship bills to oblivion or send them strolling down the Legislature's yellow brick road. The Republican legislator from Palmdale was named to the Senate Rules Committee, making him one of only two senators with an "R" behind his name on the five-member committee.

LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley's courthouse planning scandal was featured on the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw Thursday night in the "Fleecing of America" segment which chronicles government waste of tax dollars. The 2 1/2-minute report by Mike Boettcher briefly outlined how Los Angeles County spent $81 million taxpayer dollars over the past eight years on plans for eight new courthouses - only one of which is under construction.

March 21

PALMDALE - Boeing officials say they will close Site 9 at Air Force Plant 42 because of a declining workload and a large inventory of underused facilities. At least for now, no job losses are expected, company spokesmen said. But the same isn't true for Southern California generally, which will lose at least 6,200 jobs between now and 2000 because the MD-80 and MD-90 jetliner programs were canceled.

PALMDALE - Even before the Palmdale Chamber of Commerce was rocked by the ouster of 13 members for various reasons, one of the banished members was making moves to start a new chamber, encompassing the entire Antelope Valley.

Although Bernie Longjohn wouldn't discuss his plan at a meeting with the Antelope Valley Press, records show he announced his intention to file for one of three fictitious business names, one being the "Greater Antelope Valley Chamber of Commerce."

PALMDALE - A downtown liquor store across from the city's new Youth Library should be forced to move, city officials decided.

March 22

PALMDALE - Could Palmdale, with its abundant low-cost and unrestricted land, replace Hollywood and Burbank as the new home of the entertainment industry? Anthony Bowers and Rinaldo Veseliza believe it can and will, and they have at least $50,000 riding on it.

They fronted the money for the right to use 60 vacant acres near 10th Street West and Avenue M. The land is owned by the city's Community Redevelopment Agency and lies in the enterprise zone, where new and relocating companies can reap tax benefits from the state.

PALMDALE - Between population growth and new class-size reduction initiatives, the percentage of school teachers working without state credentials is rising in the Antelope Valley and throughout California.

At last report from Sacramento, 21,000 teachers in the state are working under emergency credentials.

March 24

SACRAMENTO - State Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight's introduction of a bill to ban adoptions by unmarried couples drew immediate fire from liberal legislators, the American Civil Liberties Union and a gay rights group. On the other hand, Assemblyman George Runner signed-on as a cosponsor of the bill.

LANCASTER - A part-time college teacher and two students were arrested Monday morning on battery charges after a parking lot argument escalated into a fistfight at Antelope Valley College.

March 25

An explosion in the number of auto thefts and assaults surpassed significant drops in crime in Palmdale and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, helping to drive up the number of criminal incidents in the Antelope Valley a meager 2.1% in 1997, records show.

The bounce ended a five-year decline in the number of crimes in the Valley. Yet the small increase might signal that the Antelope Valley is once again experiencing pressures from a booming population rather than a rash of crimes.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A House committee approved $6.1 million for constructing an Avenue H eight-lane overpass at the Antelope Valley Freeway, the last phase of a critical peripheral loop that city planners say will soon be at the center of trade and commerce in the Valley.

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley and Littlerock high schools' "Anytime Anywhere Learning" laptop computer program will become part of the national historical record at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., on April 6. The laptop program is one of 442 honorees - 62 of them in the field of education - that will be placed in the National Museum of American History's Information Technology Innovation Collection.

March 26

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon raised the stakes in the battle over transportation funding Wednesday when he announced a proposed amendment to a multibillion-dollar bill that would force the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to give part of its $100 million in requested subway funds to cities.

If passed, the amendment could generate $2.5 million in transportation dollars for the Antelope Valley.

March 27

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Fair board director Jack Seefus wanted to make one thing perfectly clear during a meeting of the fair board: The proposed relocation of the fair will not cost $71 million. "We need to stop the misinformation," said Seefus, who chairs the fair's finance committee. "The figure we're looking at to relocate is about $10 million to $15 million total.

March 28

VAN NUYS - A second defendant in the Antelope Valley's most notorious and violent homeinvasion robbery is sentenced to 234 years and four months in prison. A Superior Court judge imposed the sentence on Arturo Martinez, 29, who was convicted along with gang member Richard Nieto, 30, in the January 1996 home-invasion in which occupants of a Lancaster condo were brutalized, robbed and raped.

PALMDALE - A 19-year-old Littlerock man, who was reportedly chased by a gunman, was found shot to death in an upper middleclass east Palmdale neighborhood.

March 29

LANCASTER - Arrests on the Antelope Valley College campus have increased almost 500%, and calls to campus security more than doubled from 1996 to '97, according to crime statistics compiled by college administrators.

Arrests on campus rose from 13 in 1996 to 63 in 1997, 19 of those arrests were for felonies. Calls for service rose from 2,577, in '96 to 6,261 in '97.

March 30

PALMDALE - Like leading men in one of the movies on which Randy Smith works, Smith and his 11-year-old son galloped on horseback to a burning home Monday, put out the fire and perhaps saved a neighbor. The man they rescued, Brian Parker, was listed in critical condition after the fire swept through his bedroom.

EDWARDS AFB - A NASA researcher reported that a new laser system last week detected and monitored high altitude clear-air turbulence, the invisible and unpredictable bump that sometimes tosses luggage and passengers around the cabins of commercial airliners.

Uploaded December 20, 1999