1999 The year in review

September 1-15: Friends mourn star prep football player in Mojave

Sept. 1

PALMDALE - Rancher Jim Slayton is still feeling the heat from Sunday's Shannon Valley blaze. He will have to sell his 150 head of cattle because he can't afford to buy their feed. Because of the fire, about 800 acres were burned at City Ranch where Slayton's cows do their grazing.

LOS ANGELES - A judge was assigned Tuesday in the case of a former fugitive accused in a Symbionese Liberation Army police murder plot, and the woman born Kathleen Ann Soliah won the right to be tried as Sara Jane Olson - the name she adopted while on the run 23 years ago.

SACRAMENTO - A state constitutional amendment to expand the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors from five to nine members passed the state Senate late Monday. The amendment is authored by state Sen. Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles, and co-authored by Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster.

LANCASTER - The friends and family of Lauren Mann filled First Baptist Church of Lancaster on Tuesday to say goodbye to "a very special young lady," a popular, much-loved 16-year-old killed in an automobile crash last week.

Sept. 3

MOJAVE - Nearly 1,500 mourners laughed, cried and applauded Thursday as they packed the Mojave High School gymnasium and heard speakers eulogize Koury Davis, the popular football standout who died in an Aug. 27 car crash.

When it was 17-year-old Lindsey Woolford's turn, those who gathered at the memorial services grieved for her, too. She and Davis had been in love. And she, too, had been a passenger in the 1988 Chevrolet Nova that overturned on State Route 14 that early morning.

LOS ANGELES - The Lancaster woman who made about 2,600 calls to psychic hotlines during her employment by the county was sentenced Thursday to 30 days in jail and ordered to reimburse the county for the majority of the calls. Although prosecutor Rob Dver claims Cheryl Burnham racked up a $120,000 phone tab, Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor ordered Burnham to pay the county $97,972.97.

Sept. 4

PALMDALE - A mid-August parole sweep turned up 33 convicted sex offenders who illegally failed to keep authorities informed of their whereabouts, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials reported Friday. Of 221 sex offenders reported living in Palmdale, 163 were found at their properly registered addresses, Lt. Bob Rifkin said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA has practically grounded its space shuttle fleet because inspections have uncovered a startling number of damaged wires that could endanger a mission.

Sept. 5

PALMDALE - Four Palmdale men were arrested early Saturday morning for their parts in the abduction of a Crestline man. The victim, Steven Smith, 44, was held captive in a house at 37939 10th St. East for two days before he escaped around 4 a.m. Saturday and alerted police.

Sept. 6

LANCASTER - Designers of Antelope Valley Hospital's skilled-nursing center confirmed Thursday that a $9.8 million estimate on its cost reflected only the expense of constructing the building itself, without peripherals. A study commissioned to determine why the cost of the center has risen to a projected $20.4 million reported that construction estimates should have fallen in the range of $125 to $140 a square foot, not $84 a square foot as bid.

Sept. 7

LOS ANGELES - Labor Day weekend ended in traffic snarls, long airport lines and exorbitant gas prices for many of the travelers in California trying to make their way home Monday. At Los Angeles International Airport, crowds began forming about 11 a.m., causing the bulk of homeward-bound tourists to bottleneck at the metal detectors. Ticket counter lines snaked nearly out the doors of terminals as people waited to catch afternoon flights.

PALMDALE - There were no children playing in the recreation room at Marie Kerr Park on Monday. No tetherballs were handed out and no day care was available. Instead, the main building at the popular park at 30th Street West and Avenue P sat empty, except for the sheriff's deputies and arson investigators who sifted through the burned-out interior, a blaze apparently caused by the hands of vandals.

Sept. 8

LANCASTER - Joey Hanson sat in court Tuesday morning and grinned, minutes before the judge dismissed a murder charge against him. But the Palmdale man smiled too soon. Later in the day, the District Attorney's Office refiled the murder charge against Hanson for the June 18, 1998, death of a marijuana dealer who was stabbed 16 times, his body then taken into the desert and set on fire.

Sept. 9

PALMDALE - Two 13-year-old skateboarders were arrested Wednesday in connection with Monday's arson fire at the Marie Kerr Park office. The teens also were arrested in connection with two earlier vandalism attacks at the park.

VAN NUYS - The defendant called the little girl's death a nightmare. The little girl's relatives called it murder. A jury agreed with the family's version, so a Littlerock woman sentenced Wednesday will face 15 years to life in prison for crushing her lesbian lover's 8-year-old daughter to death while driving drunk. Doreen Gutierrez, 35, said nothing during her appearance in Superior Court for sentencing in the second-degree murder of Sara Criado.

LOS ANGELES - A law passed by the county supervisors Tuesday may mark the end of gun shows in Los Angeles County, including the two shows at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds and the Great Western Gun Show in Pomona, the largest of its kind in the nation.

EDWARDS AFB - The first flight of the unmanned Helios Prototype flying wing was cut short Wednesday when an emergency parachute designed to keep the craft from crashing accidentally deployed. The chute popped out about an hour and 15 minutes into a flight scheduled to last about two hours above NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center.

Sept. 11

LANCASTER - It was a day of celebration and new beginnings Friday when Antelope Valley College marked its 70th anniversary and broke ground on a $7.6 million Business/High Technology Multimedia Center.

SACRAMENTO - State Sen. William "Pete" Knight, R-Palmdale, won a resounding endorsement from the Legislature for his efforts to protect California's military bases and defense jobs, setting the stage for Gov. Gray Davis to sign his proposal into law.

SACRAMENTO - Large retail stores, so-called "big boxes" like Costco and Wal-Mart, are facing an uncertain future in California with passage of a bill in the Legislature that would limit merchandise such stores could offer. Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, and a host of other Republicans are rooting for a veto on a bill they say usurps the power of local governments and is hostile to business and consumers.

Sept. 12

PALMDALE - A 65-year-old man was slain around 7 p.m. Friday, apparently as the result of an argument that boiled over into a physical altercation. James Wood, 25, and his girlfriend Sarah Ellis, 20, both of Palmdale, are being held as suspects in the murder of John Frederick Gailer, whom Los Angeles County Sheriff's officials call a "transient," though he is considered a resident of Palmdale.

Sept. 13

LANCASTER - Some new but familiar faces will be popping up along Lancaster Boulevard in coming years. The first face - that of Lt. Gen. James "Jimmy" Doolittle - has already taken shape on the wall of Dr. Nathan Li's office, 612 West Lancaster Blvd., where it stares resolutely beyond the passing traffic.

Sept. 14

PALMDALE - Incumbent mayoral candidate Jim Ledford warned voters Sunday they should be aware of "a one-city mentality and the control politics that go with it" when they cast their ballots on Tuesday, Nov. 2.

Sept. 15

LANCASTER - The campaign for Antelope Valley Union High School District's $91-million bond accelerated Tuesday with endorsements from key state and local lawmakers, business activists and police and school officials. The bond - Measure E - already has gained the endorsement of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works officials and Republican state Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight.

LOS ANGELES - Kevin Foster, a 1989 Palmdale High School graduate and an LAPD detective, will receive the Medal of Valor Award today at the Regal Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.