1999 The year in review

January 1-11: Local smokers stock up before price hike

Jan. 1

PALMDALE - Though cigarette hoarding has been reported in many areas around the state, only a determined few local smokers are stocking up on their favorite vice before prices go up Jan. 1.

Jan. 2

LANCASTER - In the year before '00, father time dealt 1999 a pair when 22-year-old Jennifer Enochs gave birth to twins - the first babies born in the Antelope Valley this year.

Enochs became a mother for the second and third time at 8:55 and 8:56 a.m. Friday, Jan. 1, when doctors at Antelope Valley Hospital delivered James Kenneth Roy Feldman and Morris Scott Feldman.

PALMDALE - While local governments are beginning to consider using a statewide tax-sharing measure that was created with Lancaster and Palmdale in mind, the two Antelope Valley cities remain divided and somewhat hostile toward the idea of working together.

Jan. 3

SACRAMENTO - As governor-elect Gray Davis prepares to take the helm of the most populous state in the union for the next four years, a small group of Antelope Valley Democrats will join him at the Capitol.

Jan. 4

LANCASTER - Authorities found the body of the 20-year-old woman who vanished the morning of New Year's Day and was presumed murdered after she and her boyfriend argued at a party hours earlier.

Deputies discovered the remains of Palmdale resident Patricia Ayala around 11:20 a.m. Sunday in a bush in an isolated stretch of desert near Avenue L and 90th Street West.

MOJAVE - The Mojave Town Council has asked the Kern County Local Agency Formation Commission to reject a proposal from California City's City Council, which is seeking to annex a 10acre site picked for a new electric power plant.

Although the unincorporated town of Mojave supports construction of the $350 million, 500-megawatt plant, it objects to annexation of the site by California City, Mojave Town Council President Bill Deaver said Wednesday.

Jan. 5

LANCASTER - Just six weeks short of 30 years of service in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Steve Ogden turned in his badge and put on the black robes of justice.

Ogden took the oath Monday as a judge in the Antelope Valley. He replaced Municipal Court Judge Howard Swart, who retired in December.

WASHINGTON - Elizabeth Dole, 62, a cabinet member in two GOP administrations, whose husband lost to President Bill Clinton in 1996, said Monday she will leave her job with the American Red Cross to pursue a potential White House bid of her own.

SACRAMENTO - Gray Davis promised to lead California into a new era of racial harmony and educational excellence as he was sworn in today as the state's 37th governor, the first Democrat since his old boss, Gov. Jerry Brown, left office in 1983.

KERN COUNTY - Rite Aid, the drug store chain, will pay about $2 million to settle allegations brought by the Kern County District Attorney's Office that charged a Rite Aid acquisition overcharged California consumers.

Jan. 6

PALMDALE - Senior Systems Technologies, the city's newest nonaerospace manufacturing firm, opened the new year Monday by cutting 15% of its workforce.

The layoff affected 48 or 49 of the company's approximately 340 workers, Vice President and General Counsel Steve Taylor said.

LOS ANGELES - A $5,000 reward has been offered by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervi sors for information leading to arrest and conviction of vandals who scrawled racial slurs on a car parked at a Lancaster bowling alley Christmas night.

PALMDALE - Laurie Lile, who has guided the city's Planning Department since Planning Director Molly Bogh resigned in July, was named Tuesday as Bogh's permanent replacement.

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan effort for a test vote that could short-circuit President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial in the Senate faltered Tuesday, setting the stage for a formal start Thursday of the second full-scale presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history.

Jan. 7

PALMDALE - The first pioneer believed to have died in the Antelope Valley was honored Wednesday by intrepid hikers who walked the same 500-mile path the pioneers of 1849-50 took from Enterprise, Utah, to present-day Barrel Springs.

The pioneers got to what became Palmdale on their way from the Midwest to the Mother Lode.

LANCASTER - With the new year still in its infancy, 1999 is shaping up to be a tumultuous year for education in the Antelope Valley and, indeed, throughout California as lawmakers struggle for school accountability.

Last year, the Legislature ordered school districts to write a policy to prevent "social promotion" - moving kids up to another grade when they can't do the work. But the mandate has no teeth without some way to measure whether schools are complying.

LANCASTER - Beverly Hills slumlord Milton Avol lost a bid Wednesday to delay municipal efforts to demolish dozens of rundown homes he owns in Palmdale.

Palmdale City Attorney Matt Ditzhazy and Redevelopment counsel June Ailin argued before Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Ross Amspoker that Avol has had enough time to repair 58 of the 72 homes he has owned for 20 years near Division Street and Avenue P-12.

Jan. 8

LANCASTER - Sheriff's Sgt. Darrel Brown will serve the rest of Steve Landaker's term on the high school board after Brown was chosen from a pool of 15 candidates in a special meeting Thursday night.

LANCASTER - Parents of Elizabeth Begaren, the corrections officer gunned down on a freeway offramp in Anaheim, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Begaren's husband.

Robert and Chie Wheat, Begaren's parents, filed the wrongful death and civil conspiracy suit this week against Nuzzi Begaren, whom their daughter had married six months before her death.
PALMDALE - Angry parents of Summerwind Elementary School children told Palmdale School District administrators that sixthgrade children should not be in the same school with seventh- and eighth-graders.

The objections to moving sixthgrade children to Juniper Intermediate School were raised during a meeting Wednesday night at Summerwind School.

LANCASTER - Workers will soon begin installation of weapons screening equipment at the Antelope Valley Courthouse.

Money for the renovation will come from Los Angeles County Superior Court funds.

Jan. 9

LANCASTER - The man believed responsible for a deadly shooting spree that took the lives of two security guards in Compton was found hiding out in an apartment late Friday.

David James "Goldie" Livingston, 25, was found staying with friends in the Pine Creek Villas apartment complex in the 2800 block of Avenue K-12.

PALMDALE - Attorneys are going to court Monday to seek a restraining order to prevent the Palmdale Education Foundation from using any money in a newly opened, and possibly unauthorized, bank account.

SACRAMENTO - Speeders passing slower-moving vehicles on Highway 138 not only face death - they may now have to contend with much stiffer fines.

The No. 1 cause of fatalities is driving on the wrong side of the road. If state Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight has his way, motorists violating traffic laws on Highway 138 will pay twice the price.

LANCASTER - Community members, including Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford, met on Friday to weigh proposals for ordinances restricting Antelope Valley billboards that advertise the sex industry.

The meeting focused on the Video Liquidators billboards and other forms of advertising for adult videos found throughout Lancaster and Palmdale.

Jan. 10

WASHINGTON - The cost of sending most letters will rise by a penny to 33 cents today despite a four-year run of strong profits by the U.S. Postal Service.

BAKERSFIELD - Officials presented plans to the Kern County Board of Supervisors this week that outlined nearly $31.9 million worth of road improvements for the Rosamond area during the next 21 years.

COMPTON - A man who allegedly killed two security guards and wounded two others at an apartment complex remained jailed Saturday, police said.

David "Goldie" Livingston, 25, of Lynwood was being held at the downtown county jail without bail following his Friday arrest in Lancaster for investigation of murder, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.

Jan. 11

BORON - Residents of this community of 4,500 now have to get out of town to gas up their cars, pickups and motorcycles.

Both of the town's gas stations closed Dec. 23 because their underground fuel tanks do not meet current federal standards.

Uploaded December 17, 1999