1999 The year in review

Runner heads pack as AV newsmaker

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

The poll was unscientific, and informal, as daily journalism often is. You want exactitude and precision, hire a polling firm. Newspaper people like to schmooze and argue. And schmooze and argue, we did.

Other names that surfaced included two nominees who are not Valley residents, but whose actions will have enormous consequence for the future of our communities.

One of those was Lon Hatimiya, the state Commerce secretary who carried the ball for Gov. Gray Davis in landing the SR Technics commitment to bring 6,000 aircraft maintenance jobs to Boeing's Site 9 at Air Force Plant 42. The other was Hans Ulrich Beyeler, president and CEO of SR Technics, which is a subsidiary of SAir Group, which also operates SwissAir, the airline of Switzerland.

It is Beyeler's company that plans to bring those jobs to Plant 42 during the next five years, with workers performing maintenance for SwissAir and as many as 13 other airlines.

The method of sampling for "newsmaker" finally sorted out to a raw count of news stories, and a rough estimate of their significance to Valley residents.

"With more than 350 stories counted since January 1999, it's hard to find a day where Runner didn't do something of note to the newspaper," Managing Editor Vern Lawson observed. "It's sort of like Bill Clinton, on the national level. Runner is just always doing something."

And that was the rough conclusion. Runner is always doing something. The Republican assemblyman and former Lancaster mayor drives legislation like a journeyman carpenter driving nails.

At the same time that he is working on advancing the agenda of a GOP minority in Sacramento, he remains visible and energetic on the local scene in the Valley.

Whether he is lending his influence to candidates for local office, defining the debate agenda about whether the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale should share tax revenues, or melt away the city limits of the "cactus curtain" and unify, Runner is always doing something.

Runner has no press agent - he doesn't need one.

Among his accomplishments and interests were solid work to retain the place that the aerospace industry plays in the Valley and California, and work to set wheels in motion for a new fairgrounds on Avenue I, west of the Antelope Valley Freeway. He also helped Antelope Valley College secure funds for joint participation with California State University, Bakersfield, and pushed legislation to quash illegal, clandestine meth labs.

None of this work is done alone. Runner works with Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, state Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight, county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and the city councils and staffs of both cities. All those individuals were on the "newsmakers" list, including Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts, Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford and city managers Jim Gilley (Lancaster) and Bob Toone (Palmdale.)

Others also shared the nominee field with Runner.

The baker's dozen of Valley Press newsroom reporters picked former Palmdale School District public relations director Diana Beard-Williams as their choice for "newsmaker." About half the reporting staff cast that ballot. Again, unscientific, and somewhat disorganized, with a lot of murmuring and schmoozing.

Earlier in 1999, Beard-Williams was fired by the school district after the district concluded that she misused district equipment, maintained liquor stocks at work, intimidated other employees and worked on a racy novel stored in a school computer.

"Often, reporters pick people who gain notoriety," City Editor Jana Treece noted. "Diana BeardWilliams wielding a gavel at a school board meeting imbedded an unforgettable image in reporters' minds."

It's difficult to weigh two such disparate choices. The one nominee, a busy lawmaker, the other a midlevel civil servant fired after a controversy. But Beard-Williams' departure from her $59,000 a year school district job shined a light on the hiring and firing practices of the Valley's largest school district.

Some editors suggested a joint naming of "newsmaker," and along with Runner, suggested local businessman and GOP activist Frank Visco and local attorney R. Rex Parris.

Runner, Visco and Parris - together or separately - formed a triumvirate of names which Palmdale Mayor Ledford claimed cast a disproportionate weight on the outcome of local elections.

A majority of candidates supported or endorsed by each of the three and various organizations the three belong to won election to local office in November.

"They are able to mobilize people and resources," Ledford said during his successful run to maintain his incumbency.

But choosing such a troika of names as the newsmaker "is a copout," said Keith Stepro, editor of the Valley Press Opinion and Religion pages. "You've got to pick one."

And pick one we did, in a process that is a lot like the news: full of excitement, and a little messy.

Uploaded January 3, 1999