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Lancaster Mayor Censors Public Meetings

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:41:06 -0800

Published in the October 2011
Political Observer print edition

Mayor Censors
Public Meetings

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Halts Broadcast of
Non-Agendized
Public Comment

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Claims Decision is Response
to Racist, Anti-Chinese
Comment Directed at
Redevelopment Agency Member

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In Sting of Irony,
Pulling Plug Mimics
Red China’s Censorship Policy

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Rule Not Illegal,
But is Un-American

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Next Day, Criminal Justice
Commission Meeting
Public Comments Recorded by
Citizen, Posted at YouTube

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Parris Outflanked by New Media

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LANCASTER – Elected representatives would be wise to understand that in our Constitutional Republic, politics is a contact sport. The People do not yield their sovereignty to those they elect.

To Political Observers, local politics, when contentious, captures the essence of human drama. Unlike stage plays whose actors rehearse and memorize lines, political theatre dialogue is spontaneous; it adheres to no script.

As is in every compelling drama so too is it also true at Lancaster council meetings that there must be the protagonist – the more strong-willed and powerful the personality the better - and his antagonists – the more numerous and persistent the characters, the more compelling the plot.

The protagonist in Lancaster’s political theatre is Mayor R. Rex Parris, or to his friends and foes alike, “Rex.” Parris, a rags-to-riches, ambitious, wealthy and well-connected local attorney finds himself in the hot seat serving in this, his second year of second two-year term as mayor.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This version corrects the print edition article where The Political Observer erroneously reported that Mayor Parris is serving in his first two-year term.

Parris’ main antagonists are Lyle Talbot, David Abber and David Grajeda. These three men are opposed to Mayor Parris for disparate reasons.

Using the Non-Agendized Public Comment (NAPC) portion of the meeting as their soapbox, Talbot, Abber and Grajeda dissent against policy, object to the mayor’s manner in running a council meeting – often citing Parris’ proclivity to not equitably impose the rules - question City expenditures, and at times take issue with Parris’ alleged personal conduct against them in the community away from City Hall.

Regardless the subject matter on which they speak, it is these three men more so than other Parris dissenters – of which there are many - who most irk the mayor.

This judging by the mayor’s emerging pattern over the course of 2011 of engagement - sniping return comments, either by interruption, or after the speaker’s time has expired - in contrast to his practice early in his term of more often ignoring criticism rather than responding.

But as time marched on, council meeting after council meeting, month after month, comments from these three men began to wear on Parris, eventually culminating with his decision at the October 11 meeting to take his ball and go home by censoring broadcast of Public Comments on non-agendized items.

Parris’ decree extends to all televised public meetings.

Parris cites what he perceives to be a racial slur by Grajeda, who questioned RDA member Kitty Szeto’s ability to speak and understand English at a recent meeting, as his justification for censoring NAPC.

Later equivocating, Parris was reported in local press claiming censorship will have the added benefit of encouraging more residents to speak now that they need not fear being televised live while doing so.

As a result of Parris’ censorship decree, it would appear the only way for The People to continue observing this portion of meetings is to begin attending the meeting itself.

But not in this, the age of the personal camera phone. One day after the first censored council meeting at the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) meeting, at least one member of the public recorded the censored NAPC, later posting it at YouTube and on a local political Blog, thus thwarting the mayor’s censorship campaign.

Political Observers anticipate this practice to continue at city council meetings, planning commission and at CJC until Parris reverses his decision.

The Camera’s Eye

As Parris’ patience with critics diminished over time, a pattern concurrently emerged regarding the camera angle broadcasting the council’s meeting into peoples’ homes.

When Parris critics Talbot and Abber spoke, the camera angle chosen to broadcast was from the speaker’s rear - not showing either man’s face.

This has progressed into not showing the speaker at all.

According to a document obtained through the city clerk’s office after filing a Public Records Request, The Political Observer has learned that the company contracted by the City to broadcast council meetings is Visual Image Productions, owned by Wendy Williams.

The Political Observer phoned Williams to discuss the camera angles used to broadcast Talbot, Abber and Grajeda, and to ask if the decision to not show any of these men’s faces is either a choice by Williams, by instruction from City Hall, or a coincidence.

Williams did not return our call before press time.

The most recent agreement between Lancaster and Visual Image Productions was executed on May 26, 2011, and calls for payment of $300 for each city council and planning commission meeting televised at 34 meetings per year for a total purchase order worth $11,400 annually.

The order stipulates any additional hours agreed to by both parties shall be billed at $50 per hour.

The Political Observer conducted a review of every NAPC portion of every council meeting in 2011.

Under NAPC rules, any member of the public has up to three minutes to address the council on any City/Redevelopment Agency (RDA) business not listed on the agenda.

A strict interpretation of the rule as published in the agenda – limiting NAPC to speech “regarding City/Agency business” only – implies the mayor has the power to arbitrarily object to and silence any speaker choosing to not limit their comments to within the confines of non-agendized City/RDA business.

Enemies First?

The mayor having all speaker cards in his possession has the privilege to call forward any speaker at any time in any order he pleases.

At the council’s first meeting of 2011 Lyle Talbot was the first speaker called by Parris. The camera angle broadcasting Talbot was from his rear and off to the right.

While speaking, Parris can be observed with head down, busying himself by looking at paper and taking notes, seemingly ignoring Talbot’s remarks.

Talbot spoke against the Palmdale Power Plant, a position shared by Parris. He closed by mentioning an alleged physical altercation the previous summer between Parris and Abber at a local 24 Hour Fitness.

Seeking settlement to the situation “outside the courthouse,” according to Talbot, he suggested Parris and Abber fight one another in a boxing match hosted on Lancaster’s newly redesigned Lancaster Blvd, with all proceeds dedicated to the AV Veteran’s Home.

“Say $50 for a ringside seat,” suggested Talbot. “Parks and Rec[reation] can promote it as the Bully-vard Brawl, Winner Take All.”

As the last word left Talbot’s lips the bell sounded signifying his time had expired prompting Parris to thank Talbot for his comments and remind him his speaking time is completed.

As the bell continued Talbott did not yield the floor but instead continued on, adding, “How about it Rex? Suit up, or shut up! And get Jim Ledford to be the honorary referee,” in reference to Palmdale’s mayor and Parris political nemesis to the south.

Parris replied, “Mr. Talbot, I appreciate that you’re an elderly gentlemen, but you have to follow the rules just like anyone else. Please have a seat.”

The camera angle on the next speaker - not a council regular - was from the right front, the same angle used for the next speaker, Parris ally David Paul.

Paul, as often is the case, opened his remarks by sharing a family anecdote.

After Paul, Parris announced there is one additional speaker who was late submitting her speaker card in violation of the rules, but would be allowed to address the council anyway.

At an 8:30 a.m. January 17, 2011, special meeting of the Redevelopment Agency, the only person to address the governing body under NAPC was David Abber who took the council to task for scheduling the meeting in the morning.

Throughout his speech Abber was shown only by the camera angle placed to his right rear.

At the council’s regular scheduled meeting on January 25, 2011, the first speaker under NAPC once again was Talbot.

Telling the council their meeting time of 5 p.m. makes it difficult for residents who commute to Los Angeles for work to attend, his comments were broadcast using the camera positioned directly to his rear, leaving the viewer to look at Talbot’s backside and back of his head.

This angle held throughout Talbot’s dialogue as he went on to complain about the 2 a.m. time slot for the rebroadcast of council meetings on Time Warner cable.

After Talbot’s time had expired, Parris suggested to Talbot he get a computer and order internet connection to watch the city council meetings on the on-line at his convenience.

Following Talbot was Abber, who was shown from behind for the first minute of his three-minute speaking time, up until he began complaining about Parris’ selective enforcement of rules, specifically citing the previous meeting when Parris permitted one speaker to address the council even though she failed to submit a speaker’s card in time.

With these comments, the camera feed switched to a shot of the council, from the council’s right, with the right margin of the shot ending just short of capturing Abber, eliminating him from the feed. This angle was held for a short time until returning to Abber’s backside.

The next three speakers were non-regulars, all representing a local non-profit benefiting youth, and all broadcast with a face shot from their right front at an oblique angle.

Following them was David Paul who began speaking about family before segueing into warnings against bickering, calling-out Talbot personally.

Paul suggested to Talbot if he delivered his message “kinder, we would get the message a little clearer.”

Paul, like the following speaker, Victoria Zavala, was afforded a close-in camera angle from their right front.

At the council’s first February meeting Talbot was once again called by Parris to be the first speaker and spoke against the Palmdale Power Plant while being broadcast from behind with a wide angle shot.

When Talbot switched his comments to speaking about a planned knee replacement, the camera angle switched to an up-close face shot from Talbot’s right until he mentioned, upon his return after recovery, the council could expect to see him back to, as Talbot said, “kick butt until we stop this power plant.”

With these words, the camera angle changed to show Talbot in a wide angle from his rear and right.

This angle remained as Talbot broached the alleged physical altercation between Abber and Parris at a local gym.

As Talbot asked Parris to apologize, Parris, interrupting, calmly explained an apology would not happen, prompting Talbot to ask Parris not to interrupt during his three-minute speaking time.

Taking aim at City staff next, Talbot said many appeared to not be paying attention but preoccupied with text messaging.

Following Talbot was David Paul who was broadcast via close-up from his right side as he praised Parris’ restraint over the previous council meetings while under attack by public speakers.

After Paul, there were no public speakers and Vice Mayor Ron Smith took the opportunity to defend City staff against Talbot, characterizing Talbot’s remarks as, “caviling and sniping” and “invective-filled diatribes.”

There were three NAPC speakers at the February 22 meeting, two non-regulars, followed by David Paul, who began by speaking about George Washington and a History Channel episode on our nation’s first president.

All three were shown with the close-up camera angle from the right front.

Last But Not Least?

The Tuesday, March 8, NAPC brought out nine speakers before Talbot was called by Parris; eight non-regulars and David Paul.

Several spoke on the Cedar Center, one against group homes, and one man took issue with City Manager Mark Bozigian’s salary.

All speakers’ faces were shown from a right front angle, until Talbot, who was afforded his standard wide angle back shot from the rear of the chamber.

Talbot took issue with Vice-Mayor Smith’s “invective-filled diatribe” characterization of his comments from a previous meeting and said he did not appreciate being treated in that manner.

After Talbot, Parris called Abber to the dais, and he too received the same wide angle camera shot from the rear as Talbot.

After sharing about his recent visit to the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Abber brought up the alleged assault against him by Parris at a local gym before turning his guns on Smith.

Reminding Smith of his comments from a previous meeting labeling Talbot’s speech “caviling and sniping” and “invective-filled diatribes,” Abber said the best word to describe Vice-Mayor Smith is “coward.”

When Abber’s time expired, Parris, referencing President Reagan’s attempted assassin, said, “Give my regards to Hinckley, would you?”

At the March 22 meeting, the year’s seventh, the first NAPC speaker called by Parris was Darlene Peterson, a semi-regular public commenter. Peterson was followed by four others who, like her, were broadcast from the right front, until Talbot, the sixth speaker.

Talbot was treated to his customary backside view but this time with close-up, not the wide-angle.

This zoom shot placed Parris just above Talbot and was framed by Smith and former councilwoman Sherry Marquez to the left and right.

After commenting on Parris’ apparent disinterest in his comments, as judged by the mayor’s looking down at papers, Talbot questioned why he is always televised from the back but got no answer.

Talbot spoke on public business - Census figures, Palmdale Power Plant – until he had thirty seconds remaining, which is when he re-engaged Smith and Marquez, saying, “I’m here to talk about cowards and lady liars that sit on that dais.”

As his time expired and his microphone was cut off, Parris said only “Thank you,” as Talbot continued on for a few more seconds before returning to his seat.

Parris next called Abber who welcomed the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station new captain before going on the attack against Smith for a controversial incident occurring in the vice-mayor’s previous employment.

Shown from the same rear, close-up as Talbot, Marquez and Parris are seen busying themselves through most of Abber’s speech with Smith looking directly at Abber.

Near the end of his speech Abber’s camera angle switched to a right rear view until his finish, when David Paul, NAPC’s final speaker, was called by Parris. Paul was provided his usual close-in angle from his right and front.

Shuffling The Deck

At the April 12 meeting, the council went into closed session before holding NAPC. Upon return, Parris was absent, leaving Smith to chair the meeting.

The vice-mayor first called David Paul who spoke on the cosmos and philosophy.

Following Paul were a few non-regulars, followed by a call for Abber, who was no longer present.

Next was Talbot who spoke against the Palmdale Power Plant, praised the City for how good certain neighborhoods look, and then told Marquez he was still waiting for a phone call to discuss the power plant and publicly shared his personal phone number.

To be continued in the November Political Observer print edition.

The scoop on corporate taxes

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:22:12 -0800

Corporate Tax Revenues Nearing Historic Lows As A Percentage Of GDP, Report Says
The Huffington Post Maxwell Strachan
First Posted: 3/2/11 05:36 PM ET Updated: 5/25/11 07:35 PM ET

Office Of Management And Budget , Cbpp , Center For Budget And Policy Priorities , Chuck Marr , Corporate Tax Rates , Corporations , Marginal Tax Rate , Business News

Even as the federal deficit has ballooned, U.S. corporations are paying lower tax bills than ever before, according to one measure.

That's the takeaway from a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities dissecting the tax structures of corporations, which CBPP Director Chuck Marr says are now paying taxes at "historical lows as a share of the [total] economy."

Marr points to a basic discrepancy: While the U.S.'s top corporate tax rate of 35 percent is one of the highest in the world, the amount corporations actually end up forking over to the government is much lower, sometime as low as 4 percent. This is due to a dizzying number of deductions, write-offs, and other accounting tricks that allow corporations to legally reduce their tax burden.

In 2007, the report notes, the Treasury estimated federal government had missed an opportunity to collect $1.2 trillion due to various corporate tax expenditures over the previous decade.

As New York Times columnist David Leonhardt columnist recently put it, a company like General Electric is, indeed, "expert at avoiding taxes."

Using statistics from the Office of Management and Budget, CBPP created this graph, mapping total collected corporate taxes as a percentage of the overall U.S. economy:

To read the full story complete with graph charts go to: l]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/corporate-tax-revenues-ne_n_830361.html[/url]

Really Herman, win over the community?

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:31:55 -0800

How does a solar company win over the community? Really Herman? That you even need to ask baffles the mind. All the solar companies need to do is what the town councils have asked for. First and foremost hide the ugly fencing that is ruining the character and visual view of our rural community. Provide for animal habitat mitigation that is being displaced by their project. Include some habitat mitigation in the site barriers that they said they'd do in their construction plan. Instead of using 'palliatives' for dust mitigation, they need to come up with a green, or otherwise, landscaping plan that will accomplish dust mitigation while using ever less water.

We've talked about several other mitigation needs....so where's the planning toward accomplishing these goals? The mitigation money promised to town councils is only part of the answer. What to do with the funds needs to be put to a vote of the community as a whole. Should we use it for a park, sheriff station, fire, or what, then work towards the goal the communities want. Let the voice of the community be heard by popular vote....not just the councils. The county needs to identify a property where they can develop these needed community services the locals desire, gee, to think a solar company could buy land and donate it to the county for such a need. (Maybe what we need is a coalescent community instead of the squabbling.) Maybe the councils need to work together, one pay for engineering the park community center while the other pays to design the landscaping. Maybe, just maybe, the county could chip in a fire station for all our property tax and increased revenue monies.

It's apparent that the solar companies have talked a good talk, but aren't walking it. What the locals want to see is some effort that these issues are being addressed and WORKED toward. Remember the saying, actions speak louder than words! Have any trees been planted yet? That isn't rocket science, Herman! Maybe instead of firing the crew at one solar site, they should have put them to work planting something, eh? Geez, Herman, even a load of gravel down one of their roads would be progress towards dust mitigation.

When all is said and done, will this be a community that will prosper for all the development and money being poured into the area, or is it just going to end up being a dead zone of solar panels and wind towers?
Today 12:37 PM

How Does a Solar Power Plant Developer Win Over the Community?

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:33:28 -0800

News | Projects
Herman K. Trabish: October 11, 2011
How Does a Solar Power Plant Developer Win Over the Community?

In the Antelope Valley, they don’t like change—but they like NRG Solar’s Keith Latham and a million dollars of Big Sun money.
How Does a Solar Power Plant Developer Win Over the Community?

Many people in California’s Antelope Valley, one of the state’s sunniest places, have a slightly different take on solar energy compared to renewable energy advocates in energy-hungry cities.

As they watch solar power plant developers gobble up the wide open spaces in their high desert landscape, they wonder why people in San Francisco and Los Angeles aren’t putting solar panels on their rooftops instead of sending corporations to intrude on their quiet rural lives and make them pay a far greater price for climate change than the cities’ polluters.

collage by author

Antelope Valley’s solar resource is special. Pacific winds blow through the Tejon Pass, pushing any cloud cover off to the Tehacapis or the San Gabriels and opening the desert floor to dawn-to-dusk sunlight on well over 300 days of the year.

It’s an asset solar developers and California’s political leaders, intent on generating a third of the state’s power from renewables by the end of this decade -- and reaping the economic rewards that will come from doing so -- can’t resist.

Arbitrating between the locals and the leaders are people like Keith Latham, NRG Solar Vice President of Development.

Latham, an engineer, moved from overseeing fossil fuel plant permitting four years ago to overseeing solar power plant development. He joined NRG two years ago.

In late 2009, Latham and NRG Solar took over a claim in the valley staked initially by eSolar for a solar power tower project. Amid the economic downturn, eSolar’s little-tested technology became unbankable, while rapidly falling silicon prices made an NRG photovoltaic (PV) panel installation an appealing deal for the 640-acre site.

Latham came into the Antelope Valley equipped with diplomacy and bargaining chips.

The first order of business was renegotiating the power purchase agreement (PPA) that eSolar had with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). “It was a process they were willing to work through,” Latham said of the utility’s willingness to turn to PV.

Next came the permitting process and obtaining a transmission interconnection, which Latham saw through by December 2010. NRG’s Alpine Solar became a 66-megawatt, phase 1 PV project on 400 acres of the site. An additional 26 megawatts, already permitted and with a ready interconnection, may be built on the remaining acreage as phase 2.

But the permits and the interconnection, although often a project’s most challenging hurdles, turned out to be only the beginning for Latham.

“As part of the permitting process, we needed to involve the community,” Latham explained, and that, he said, “has been a widely varying dynamic since we started the process.”

Latham said, “We were [initially] working with Antelope Acres Town Council, the only town council we were aware of within a reasonable distance of our project.” But at the end of 2010, about the time the Alpine Solar permits were being granted by the County of Los Angeles, “the Fairmont Town Council came into existence,” Latham said. They and Friends of Antelope Valley Open Space, a local environmental group, appealed the permits.

To sort out the thorny issue of which body they should work with to legitimately negotiate local issues, Latham said, “We spent a lot of time in the area. We started setting up regular meetings with the Fairmont Town Council and the community. We were regulars at their town council meetings and really tried to work with them to identify the needs of the community.”

Latham made weekly trips to the region, spent a day or more on each visit, and pointedly engaged in discussions with those he identified as key stakeholders. Through this time-intensive process, he came to understand local concerns.

Latham first assured the communities he would not cut down a locally treasured stand of trees. Then, at their urging, he chose to reduce the height of the security fences from eight feet to six feet and to line the fences with aesthetically appealing staggered double rows of afghan pines, which thrive in the high desert.

Latham also voluntarily set aside about 50 of the site’s unused 240 acres to help protect the valley’s burrowing owl population. “It was an environmentally sensitive area, so it just made sense,” Latham said, “to make it secure instead of messing up a habitat.”

But these concessions were really just overtures. Sources who did not want to be identified revealed to Greentech Media that NRG Solar committed to pay nearly a half million dollars in cash and land to each of two of the local town councils over the coming 20 years.

Latham confirmed that NRG had concluded formal agreements with both the Fairmont and Oso Town Councils but would not comment on financial details. “The terms are confidential,” Latham said.

Latham’s efforts won allegiance from community leaders. Fairmont Town Council President Dave Kerr described him as “a pleasure to work with” and “most unlike the ‘used car dealer types’ from the other solar company in the area.” Kerr also said he hopes “Keith will do other projects here in the future.”

By mid-October, Latham said, he expects to have an executed agreement with another company to build and operate the Alpine Solar project. NRG Solar estimates it will provide over 240 construction jobs and Latham said he intends to make sure these positions go to locals.

As to what advice Latham would offer other developers looking to win over reluctant locals, Latham simply said, “Spend time in the community to understand the people and what’s of value to them.”

Silverado Power’s Different Approach to Building Solar

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:21:03 -0800

News | Transmission & Distribution
Herman K. Trabish: February 1, 2012
Silverado Power’s Different Approach to Building Solar

Will it make a difference in a region torn by contention over renewables?
Silverado Power’s Different Approach to Building Solar

Silverado Power believes its approach to development can avoid the controversies impeding the advance of renewables in Southern California.

In response to those controversies, major renewable energy projects got some not-so-great news from Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors in the last week of January. The Supervisors’ decisions threaten California Governor Jerry Brown’s ambition to obtain 33 percent of the state’s power from renewables by 2020.

from Silverado Power

NextEra Energy’s 200-megawatt Blue Sky wind project and Element Power’s 250-megawatt solar-wind hybrid project were both denied permits for meteorological towers by the Supervisors. Without the data that can be gleaned from those towers, those projects will not be able to obtain financing.

Developers are flocking to L.A. County’s Antelope Valley because of enormous wind and solar resources there and the sizable transmission system being developed by Southern California Edison (SCE). When complete, SCE’s lines will deliver thousands of megawatts of electricity generated by Antelope Valley’s wind and sun to California’s populous urban centers.

The controversies center on the ambiguous term 'mitigation.' It was originally associated with the impacts associated with the development of renewables. If harms could not be avoided, they might be mitigated by preserving adjacent portions of land for habitat, preservation and recreation.

More recently, 'mitigation' has come to also mean something like compensation to the communities being impacted by the projects. Neighbors of large projects contend that upheavals from construction and the interruptions of life as it was before development require this second kind of mitigation.

Silverado Power has a different approach, with which it hopes to minimize the need for both kinds of mitigation by being in touch with the community early and identifying the right sites.

Silverado was founded in 2010 by former executives of Recurrent Energy and Renewable Ventures. It is backed by Portugal’s Martifer Solar, which has recently been installing solar at the rate of 100 megawatts a year, according to Silverado Manager of Business Development Chris Wiedemann.

Silverado Power has 16,000 acres of land under site control and approximately three gigawatts of interconnection positions allotted to it across the U.S., largely in the Southwest. It has been granted 355 megawatts of use permits in the region and expects to soon have some 500 megawatts more.

Antelope Valley was one of the company’s first targets, Wiedemann said. But the company was aware of the mitigation controversies swirling around Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One, the 230-megawatt photovoltaic undertaking First Solar bought from NextLight in 2009 and is now building for Exelon, which it sold to last year.

Drawing on the experience of “other players in the community who have had varying response to community outreach,” Wiedemann said, Silverado chose to aim for smaller, lower-profile projects. “Our focus in that region is between five and 20 megawatts” and is “interconnection-driven,” he continued.

That approach, Wiedemann noted, reduces the need for mitigation of the first variety through the selection of land “that has been previously disturbed: retired farm grounds or properties that are being actively dry-farmed or grazed.” This avoids “major mitigation hurdles” and “major backlash” from community groups, Wiedemann explained, and “takes the controversial issues out of the picture.”

An indication of the soundness of Silverado’s strategy, Wiedemann said, is that that company was "awarded 100 megawatts of PPAs [power purchase agreements] from SCE in the 2010 bidding for under-20-megawatt projects.”

Initially, Silverado has narrowed its focus to three L.A. County projects, Central Antelope Dry Ranch (52 megawatts), Lancaster WAD (5 megawatts) and Silver Sun Greenworks (20 megawatts).

They have received three conditional use permits (CUPs) from the City of Lancaster and one from the City of Palmdale, Wiedemann said. But those cities welcome renewables developers. The prickly and passionate stewards of L.A. County’s high desert are another matter.

“One of the biggest hurdles facing these projects right now is permitting,” Wiedemann said. “We’re putting a lot of time and energy into the L.A. County approval process” and “working very closely with County planners” so as to move ahead with development and the “jobs and investment” it will mean for the region.

As to the second type of mitigation, Wiedemann said, “Our approach has been to get out there early, meet with these groups, present the projects, address concerns in the earlier stages of development and not do an eleventh-hour outreach approach. We see ourselves as long-term community members and participants, and the only way to validate that is to get in front of these folks early and listen to the feedback.” Silverado, he added, has been in contact with “a majority of the town councils in the region.”

Demonstrating the challenge developers face in the Antelope Valley, a local Town Council member’s comment on the vigorous Silverado outreach was, “You better tell them to get their asses over here.”

Wiedemann is nevertheless cautiously optimistic. “Our hope is to maintain a strong relationship with the local groups and interests,” he said. “What we hope will not happen is being [viewed as] guilty by association with some of these other projects that are sited in less optimal areas. That’s the larger risk. Our process and our siting strategy will hopefully prevail: Smaller projects, lower profile and siting away from sensitive biological and cultural resources and local landmarks.”

Silverado, Wiedemann said, intends to be “a long-term partner in these communities, not a fly-by-night developer that comes and goes.”

One Solar-Wind Hybrid Goes Down, Another Goes Up

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:09:28 -0800

Herman K. Trabish: January 31, 2012
One Solar-Wind Hybrid Goes Down, Another Goes Up

Element Power and NextEra get delayed; enXco gets started.
One Solar-Wind Hybrid Goes Down, Another Goes Up

Element Power’s proposed Wildflower Renewable Energy Farm, which would be composed of 150 megawatts of wind and 100 megawatts of solar, got dealt a significant setback on January 24 when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected the company’s application for new meteorological (met) towers.

Without met tower data, Element Power is unlikely to be able to obtain financing to proceed.

from Element Power

Across Antelope Valley on the southern slopes of the Tehachapi Mountains, enXco’s Pacific Wind-Catalina Solar project, fully permitted by Kern County, has begun construction. Pacific Wind will be 140 megawatts and Catalina Solar will be 110 megawatts. Conceived separately but almost immediately adjacent to one another, the installations will share a transmission gen-tie and facilities at the point of interconnection, according to enXco Vice President for Southwestern Region Development Mark Tholke. It will be, Tholke said, a “world-class solar-wind hybrid.”

The project is positioned to take advantage of the new Whirlwind substation that Southern California Edison (SCE) is building as part of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP) for thousands of new wind and solar megawatts. The high desert has one of the country’s richest wind resources and is also “great for solar,” Tholke said. “The insolation is strong and it’s a little cooler because we have some elevation.”

Though California’s transmission system operator has advanced its management of variability, Tholke explained, a hybrid project makes the task somewhat simpler because, he said, studies show that wind and solar generate at different times. “Wind,” Tholke said, “might feed the transmission system 30 percent to 40 percent of the time. When you layer in the solar, that puts more power onto those same lines.”

Solar-wind hybrids are not uncommon in backyard setups in the U.S. and around the world. Where there is no grid service or in locations where someone wants to minimize grid reliance, a combination of solar panels and a small wind turbine may capitalize on local resources.

According to China state news agency Xinhua, North China Grid Co., a subsidiary of State Grid Corp, China's biggest transmission operator, recently brought on-line a 140-megawatt wind-solar hybrid project composed of 100 megawatts of wind and 40 megawatts of PV solar. It may be the only generating full-size, utility-scale, solar-wind hybrid project in the world. Described as a “demonstration project” in Hebei Province, the project reportedly also incorporates a 20-megawatt battery storage capability.

There are small utility-scale U.S. experiments combining solar and wind around the country. The first and most widely known is Western Wind’s “fully integrated” 10.5-megawatt system in Arizona. It is composed of five two-megawatt Gamesa turbines and a 500-kilowatt Suntech crystalline photovoltaic solar array. A number of developers have announced plans to retrofit solar energy systems immediately adjacent to producing wind projects to test their grid operators’ capability to integrate the two.

There is nothing in the U.S. on the scale of the enXco undertaking. It will use 70 two-megawatt REPower turbines and it will be the biggest Solar Frontier copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) PV installation in the world. EnXco has long aspired to build a hybrid project, Tholke said, to show how effective it can be to feed the grid with both resources. The physical proximity of Pacific Wind and Catalina Solar offered the opportunity.

EnXco has other hybrid projects in various stages of development, and, Tholke said, the company remains interested in the concept’s potential. Building this one has taught them much. “There are lessons learned along the way,” he said. “It would have, for instance, been more efficient if we had figured out the mechanics of how to share the gen-tie earlier.”

EnXco did not encounter the kind of local opposition that waylaid Element Power. That is partially due to a tradition of energy development in Kern County that goes back to its days as an oil center. Another reason was what Tholke called “a robust outreach to landowners in the vicinity.” Finally, Tholke noted, the wind-solar project involved “over 300 landowners” and therefore offered a lot of people a personal interest in seeing it go forward.

In the Supervisors’ decision against Element Power, NextEra Energy was also denied new met tower permits for its proposed 200-megawatt Blue Sky project. Local opponents of Wildflower and Blue Sky regarded the Board’s rejection of the met tower applications as a vindication of their ecological concerns.

NextEra Energy’s response to the decision carried a different implication. “Our current focus is on projects further along in our pipeline and executing our 2012 wind development program,” noted NextEra Director of Communications Steven Stengel.

NextEra is the leading U.S. wind developer. The vital production tax credit (PTC) that gives the wind industry a fighting chance to compete with the heavily subsidized oil, natural gas and coal industries may not be extended this year by a gridlocked Congress. U.S. developers are scrambling to get every turbine they can into the ground before the PTC expires on December 31.

Element Power declined to comment on the Board’s decision but is in essentially the same position.

The companies are not as concerned with their opponents in Los Angeles County right now as they are with getting turbines built before the end of the year. And the Supervisors will be more inclined to grant their met tower permits after being re-elected in November, when Governor Brown’s favor will supersede voter sentiment. In the interim, neither developer will forget the rich resources, available transmission and huge nearby demand centers that have been seized on by enXco.

County considering $2 million solar plan to power water pumps

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:19:52 -0800

AV Press
Feb 01 2012
County considering $2 million solar plan to power water pumps

LANCASTER - Los Angeles County officials plan to spend $2 million to install solar-power panels at a water well field in Lancaster, using the panels to power well pumps and selling excess electricity to Southern California Edison.

Of the $2 million construction cost, $650,000 is to be reimbursed to Los Angeles County Waterworks District No. 40 by the California Solar Initiative Program, county officials said.

"The project's life expectancy is estimated to be 25 years and the payback period of the district's share of project's cost is estimated to be 12 years, beyond which the district's cost for the generated power is zero,"

Public Works Director Gail Farber wrote in a report to county supervisors. "Additionally, the project will have a positive environmental impact by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 750,000 pounds per year."

Without comment, county supervisors approved the proposal at a meeting Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles.

The 350-kilowatt, ground-mounted solar panels are proposed to be installed on 2.5 acres of county property on Fifth Street West north of Avenue K-8, east of apartment complexes along Gadsden Avenue. Fields border the property on three sides.

The land already contains three wells and electrically powered pumps, plus a water storage tank.

Money to pay for the work is in the waterworks district's accumulated capital outlay fund budget for this year and next year, officials said.

County officials said the work is expected to cause no environmental harm.

Kern create an exclusionary maps for wind

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:17:01 -0800

AV Press
Feb 01 2012

New map to guide wind projects

By: Allison Gatlin

After hearing more than two hours of public testimony, most of it in opposition, the Kern County Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed Tuesday to proceed with the process of developing a map to guide future wind energy development.

However, the process will take a different approach from the preliminary proposal that has drawn fire in recent weeks.

The draft map created by the Planning Department and presented to the public over the past six weeks was an inclusionary map, which outlined areas within which wind energy projects would be considered, leaving those areas outside the boundary closed to such projects.

Instead, the department, at the board's direction and as a result of public input, will look to create an exclusionary map. This type of map would instead outline those areas where wind energy projects may not be considered, leaving the remaining regions open to potential development.

Supervisor Zack Scrivner, whose 2nd District includes Tehachapi, Mojave and much of eastern Kern County, proposed creating the wind area map, but found by beginning with an inclusionary map, "we've done this backward."

Because the primary concern was protecting communities from encroachment by the wind projects, "with the exclusionary map, that's what you're focusing on," he said.

The boundary map project resulted from a controversial wind energy project proposed last year that was closer to the town of Tehachapi than earlier projects. That project, dubbed Panamint, was withdrawn following public opposition.

"When Panamint was proposed, it crossed a (unofficial) barrier," Scrivner said. "I think it took folks that live in the Tehachapi area by surprise. It had encroached to a degree on the community that, at least I felt, was not in keeping with the character of the area, the spirit of the area of Tehachapi. I think a lot residents felt the same way."

That led to requests from the city of Tehachapi and other residents to establish a wind boundary map to provide some certainty as to where future projects could be proposed and where they would be off-limits, he said.

In his presentation to the board Tuesday, Craig Murphy, Advance Planning/Community Development Division chief in Kern County, offered six options to the original draft map, created with the public's feedback over the past six weeks. They included two versions of exclusionary maps, and the sixth option was to continue with the status quo and not adopt a map of any kind.

Creating an exclusionary-based map will allow for more predictability for the future for potential developments, 1st District Supervisor Jon McQuiston said. The goal was to identify some kind of boundary line so residents and developers would know where development was possible.

"For want of a hub cap, we're going to build a car. And that's OK," he said. "I'm comfortable moving forward. I think there's more work to be done."

Fourth District Supervisor Ray Watson said he could not support the inclusionary concept, as he feels it gives the implication that some areas are favored over others by restricting where wind development may occur. It sends a message that may be mistaken to mean the county supports any wind development as long as it is within that area.

An exclusionary map, created with additional public input and support, will protect areas from encroachment based on community values, he said.

"I think trying to protect some areas is the right thing to do," he said.

The board and planners stressed that any map eventually adopted, in whatever form, it will not exempt projects from the existing environmental review and permitting processes, which take into account community input.

Any eventual map should take into consideration those property owners opposed to developing wind projects on their own lands and allow them to be included in the exclusion areas as well, 3rd District Supervisor Mike Maggard said.

"Private property rights I think are one of the fundamental values and rights we have in our Constitution," he said. "I think they provide a huge overlay over how we should view everything."

The board agreed to proceed slowly, with a great deal of public participation, in the hopes of avoiding the sense of a rushed job that a number of residents expressed over this initial process.

"Unfortunately there was a perception that this was something that was being accelerated," Scrivner said. Residents complained they hadn't had time to adequately review the proposed maps, particularly the new options released last week.

"My sense of what we need to do at this point is to slow way down, allow people time to look at all these maps, go out, workshop them in the communities of East Kern, get the input from people that we need in order to determine exactly where we need these lines to go," he said.

In the more than two hours of public testimony Tuesday before the board decided to proceed with the map process, the majority of the commenters found fault with the original draft plan and a large number were opposed to allowing further wind energy projects altogether.

Nearly all those who spoke were residents of the Tehachapi area or Mojave, those areas directly impacted by the proposed maps.

Opposition to wind projects included concerns of their impacts on the environment, bird populations, human health and aesthetics.

Several speakers also accused the county of rushing through projects without adequate study, and using the draft map as a means of speeding the approval process.

"I think the maps are disingenuous," said a Tehachapi rancher, and a means of accelerating project approvals in advance of the end of federal wind energy subsidies at the end of 2012.

He was one of a number of speakers who referred to property north of Tehachapi owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the city of Vernon.

"Los Angeles has no claim on our pristine Sierras. That's what we're giving up with no benefit to us," he said.

Most of those who did offer support, often tepid, for a wind area map preferred an exclusionary version or one that more closely follows the unofficial Tehachapi Renewable Wind Resource Area, a boundary created during an earlier wind energy boom decades ago that outlined where the wind resources occur, to be used strictly as a tool for identifying areas where the best winds exist. This map was never adopted by Kern County or any other agency with jurisdiction in the area.

Those not opposed to wind energy in general usually were opposed to it nearby. Another Tehachapi rancher defended the wilderness areas of the Paiute Mountains.

"It's probably the last bastion of beautiful mountains, clean air, clean water in Southern California," he said. "The whole Mojave side has already been destroyed. What's wrong with continuing that process? It's already messed up."

Some complained that the Tehachapi area was unfairly shouldering the burden for Kern County's renewable energy goals.

"The county can choose some other place to accomplish its wind turbine goals," said Dave Walsh. "I say enough already. The residents of the Tehachapi Valley have already given enough. The residents of Tehachapi Valley have already done more than their share."

agatlin@avpress.com

Are Scholarships the Right Answer?

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:37:53 -0800

Is scholarship awards the right answer?

Though I agree that higher education is becoming exceeding expensive in California, there are many financial vaults that exist within the California and Federal administration that students can
and do tap in to, though it still doesn’t pay for it all and there are fewer rather than many families that can not afford the expense and sacrifice. Scholarships are an important economic tool for youth who are planning any kind of skilled professional or vocational life.

However, an $140,000 scholarship from First Solar, though an honorable gift, can/will only benefit the few with little or no beneficial or constructive effect on the communities themselves in the near or future scope; let face it, the western most Antelope Valley lacks industry, recreation, or destination value; thus, the education will only have value outside our hamlet communities. The only attraction of this portion of Los Angeles County is to those that chose to live here, whether it be for cost effective housing, personal leisure, raising a family without the intense problems associated with “the city”; Some have come here for the peace of mind, clean air, starry skies, retirement and more...these points are without dispute.

If the renewable energy companies want to infuse a “community benefit”, the benefit needs to be far-reaching, equable, advantageous, and can meet the very potentials that the energy companies exploit -- the potential dividend of benefitting ourselves; becoming a rewarding and fruitful success example of our community bonds with industry, to the County, State, perhaps the nation.

The formula doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand. As we, the nation, incorporate “alternative energy” into our lifestyle so should we, as a model community, lead by example; by that I mean we [/b] should derive at least 33% of our energy from alternative sources.

The plan is simple, beneficial, cost effective, and has a long tendered meaningful effect. First Solar, you’re in the solar business: subsidize individual community homes with residential solar alternatives, that can supplement or reduce our reliance on commercial energy; this could be for the home or to power our water wells. The recipient being responsible for permits (where applicle) and installation with a promissary that the equipment will be installed within an element of time from permit or delivery and that it will be used and maintained for no less than three-quarters of the equipment’s life expectancy. The win-win of it is that the owner can (at thistime) achieve TAX CREDITS; electrical bills are lowered; and its benefits are LONG TERM and First Solar effectively resolves the "to whom" and the "rendered benefits" part of the equation.

Obviously, this process would take several years to achieve the desired end result. For example, a medium sized grid-tie system that generates about 692 kWh a month would cost about $11,000 BEFORE the 30% federal tax credit and rebates offered by the state and/or utility company. This particular example system would include about twenty-two 230 watt solar panels and racking. The Federal
tax credit could be as much as $4,000. (Check with your own tax accountant and current existing rebate/credit incentives). I do not have numbers for a water well solar installation. So, how many
homes are we talking about? To simplify the math, if each operating unit had an average cost of $10K -- then, 14 homes/year could be so equipped for $140,000.

Likely there are some owners that will reject this or may not be a practical candidate (lack of available sunlight on north-facing terrain, for example). Each qualified property could be selected through a lottery system. Particulars can be worked out, but it seems pretty simple to me and it was also an idea “mentioned” at the Supervisor’s January 12th meeting.

In addition, though I don’t have personal hands-on reference to the proposed “Fairmont Community Standards”, it is personally believed that every NEW residence (including Centennial) should be
required to have equipped a 30% alternative energy package (and not just hook-ups for future installments.)

Now, back to scholarships...in the spirit of further education may I suggest two $1,000 scholarships be made yearly (one per semester) for the studies and/or degree in alternative energy practices, whether it be about solar specifically or electrical engineering or alternative energy management and NOT specifically rendered by AV College. The scholarship being funded ONLY AFTER successful semester-end completion with a passing grade. Scholarships could be determined by an essay competition and awarded by an impartial 3-member board, as a given for example. This is called community interest PR and hardly costs anything, but does the job.

This, folks, is only my opinion; it works for me. I have been a long term resident here in Neenach for more than a few full moons. My kids have been born, raised, and educated here; they have either
been thru college or are attending; gosh, I think I’m still paying on the school bond for Neenach Elementary School (yes, there was a time it was actually used as a school!)

What’s your say? If you agree, even in part, then say so – let others know. An idea is only as good as the willingness to support it.

A meeting January 12 at an airport the Western Antelope Valley

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:56:27 -0800

Mountain enterprise
January 27 2012
First Solar Seeks 'New Beginning' for 2012

First Solar Seeks 'New Beginning' for 2012
A meeting January 12 at an airport the Western Antelope Valley called on rural town councils and First Solar, Inc. to make a new start. [Hedlund photo]

W. Antelope Valley Town Councils Asked to ‘Play Nice’
CLICK FOR FULL ARTICLE

By Patric Hedlund

Norm Hickling cleared his throat, then called for a calm meeting in which the first rule would be “No Shouting.” He spoke of the past year as a “bloodbath” and no, this was not a gathering of WWE’s Extreme Smackdown wrestlers. Hickling is Los Angeles County District 5 Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s field deputy to the Western Antelope Valley.

He had invited rural town council members to what he called a “secret meeting at an airport” among people whose attempts to meet in 2011 had “spun out of control.”

That included active members of the Antelope Acres, Oso (Neenach) and Fairmont town council regions, along with executives of First Solar, Inc.— one of the first two renewable energy companies to receive authorization to begin building a solar farm. Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One (AVSR1) is the name of that project, located in the Fairmont-Neenach area near 170th Street West and Highway 138. It is about 15 miles west of Antelope Acres.

Because First Solar executives developed relationships with Antelope Acres during the permitting process (and received their support with the L.A. County Planning Commission), Oso and Fairmont complained bitterly that it was a political alliance rather than a sincere attempt to work with the people whose lives will be most changed by the utility- scale solar facility.

Increased traffic, the visual blight of endless 9-foot chain link fences “topped with razor wire” shutting off what were once wide open vistas, fire dangers and other stakeholder questions were largely left unsettled.

When it was reported that First Solar had given $200,000— $60,000 in grants to community organizations and $140,000 in a “community benefit gift”—to Antelope Acres, without ever “coming to meet” Fairmont or Oso councils, anger became intense. Other feuds arose about council boundary lines and about hiring plans at AVSR1.----------------------------
CLICK FOR FULL ARTICLE

Oso Town Council was insistent that qualified local labor be given first access to what was initially said to be about 350 “prevailing wage” construction jobs (about $42 an hour). In fact, about half of that number were hired—and 37 of those were laid off without warning on December 30.

Now, at the dawn of 2012, Hickling was asking everyone to “start fresh.”

He invited First Solar to present a proposal to close the animosity gap between town councils. He introduced First Solar’s senior vice president of government affairs, James Woodruff, who made a proposal to press the reset button on the community benefit gifts.

Woodruff suggested that the first $140,000 to Antelope Acres be converted into a scholarship fund administered by Antelope Valley College to benefit students from the entire area.

Then he whipped out a brand new check for $140,000, suggesting it be invested in a revolving fund administered by a committee comprised of people from each of the town councils, with the help of what he called CalFund (which is the website for the $1.24 billion endowed California Communities Foundation, based in downtown Los Angeles). There was less than immediate enthusiasm for the proposal among the 25 people in the room.

Some suggested there is an urgent need for a fire station, paramedic ambulance and a sheriff’s’ substation in the area. Pat Chiodo of the Fairmont Council mentioned the fire at the AVSR1 facility last summer and a theft of copper wire that occurred recently for which first responders took 45 to 90 minutes to arrive.

Since power from AVSR1 is going to Los Angeles and it can still cost $25,000 just to bring service to a lot in the rural region, an Antelope Acres woman said perhaps solar panels could be allocated to all residents so they could generate their own electricity. Someone else suggested a monthly stipend to help people with their utility bills.

Fairmont Town Council President David Kerr, sounding battle- weary, said of the committee concept, “people would be at each others’ throats.” He noted that small grants would mean a lot to individual students, but wouldn’t go far toward securing a fire station. It was agreed to discuss ideas with constituents and return to the issue on February 7.

The second half of the meeting introduced new players on the First Solar team, who vowed to be more forthcoming with information of concern to the community, such as how much water is being pumped at the 2,100 acre construction site.

New project manager Larry Whittet was introduced. He said he would be the new local point man for the project.

Senior Vice President Jim Lamon, international head of engineering, procurement and construction, explained the recent layoffs of local workers was preplanned. He made projections about local hiring in April.

He said the company had not understood that zip codes in this area can be misleading. The AVSR1 plant and its neighbors are closer to Lebec’s 93243 and Frazier Park’s 93225 than they are to Lancaster which has their shared zip code of 93535. Lamon’s chart showed that 55 of the 158 employees live within 30 miles of the project and 46 reside within 60 miles. Union electricians are being hired from a Lancaster union hall.

Los Angeles County General Plan Update 2035

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:09:46 -0800

Los Angeles County General Plan Update 2035

The General Plan Update will guide growth and development in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County through the year 2035. It provides a framework of goals, policies and implementation programs centered on the theme of sustainability – or meeting our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their economic, social and environmental needs. The major land use policies that are supported by goals, policies, programs and strategic changes to the land use policy maps are:

Transit Oriented Districts - Areas with existing development, infrastructure, and public transit options where higher density housing, a mix of land uses, and the creation of places that are safe and comfortable to walk would be encouraged.

Special Management Areas - Areas that require additional development regulations necessary to prevent the loss of life and property and to protect the natural environment and important resources.

Preservation of Industrial Land: Economically viable industrial and employment-rich lands with policies to prevent the conversion to non-industrial uses.

Learn More: Please visit our website http://planning.lacounty.gov/generalplan where you can review the entire Draft General Plan Update including all figures and land use policy maps.

New Resources Available

Outreach Presentations Online: A series of community outreach presentations on the County’s General Plan Update were provided last fall. If you missed the meeting in your area you can access a narrated version of the presentation online at http://planning.lacounty.gov/generalplan/meetings.

Introducing GP-NET: We’re also pleased to announce the rollout of our GIS based system—GP-NET. With GP-NET you can look up any parcel in the unincorporated areas to find out its current and proposed land use designations and other related information. You can access GP-NET at http://planning.lacounty.gov/gis/interactive.

Goals and Policies Comparison: We created this report in order to highlight the changes between the 1980 General Plan and the Draft General Plan Update. You can access the General Plan Comparison Report at http://planning.lacounty.gov/generalplan

Implementation – Draft Zones: As part of the General Plan Update’s implementation program, new zones will be created and the mixed use and manufacturing zones will be revised to carry out the goals and policies of the General Plan Update. You can review them at http://planning.lacounty.gov/generalplan/zoning. Please direct any comments or questions regarding the draft zones to our Ordinance Studies Section at (213) 974-6432 or ordstudies@planning.lacounty.gov.

Your Support is Important

As it applies to all the unincorporated areas of one of the geographically largest counties in the country (with an economy ranked #17 in the world), the General Plan Update, as you can imagine, is lengthy and comprehensive in scope. If you’re looking for something in particular, please feel free to let us know and we’ll be happy to connect you with the information you need. Your support for the County’s General Plan Update is important to us and we welcome your comments and questions.

Thank you,

The General Plan Team

(213) 974-6417

genplan@planning.lacounty.gov

If you no longer wish to receive emails from the Department of Regional Planning regarding the General Plan Update, please reply to this message with “remove” in the subject line.

Connie Chung, AICP
Supervising Regional Planner
General Plan Development/Housing Section
Department of Regional Planning
320 W. Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
http://planning.lacounty.gov
213-974-6417

AV Town Crier Solar One/Community Meeting Fox field meeting January 12 2012

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:03:55 -0800

AV Town Crier
Solar One/Community Meeting
Fox field meeting January 12 2012

CLICK TO ENLARGE

ANTELOPE VALLEY ILLEGAL DUMPING TASK FORCE- Wednesday, February 8, 2012, at 3 p.m.

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:00:44 -0800

ANTELOPE VALLEY ILLEGAL DUMPING TASK FORCE

NEWSLETTER - NOVEMBER, 2011

[cell][/table][/align]
The next meeting of the Task Force is scheduled for:

Wednesday, February 8, 2012, at 3 p.m.
Fire Station No. 129, Training Center
42110 6th Street West
Lancaster, California

If you have any questions, please contact David Pang at (626) 458-3563, Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

AVSR1 making changes--Good? or Bad?

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:47:37 -0800

We are looking down 170th and have noticed that the imitation razor wire has been removed and a fence cover has been installed. For what reason, who knows????? Maybe since the guards can't chase the public off the Public street maybe it is a feeble attempt to block camera shots. I hope that this fence doesn't turn into the ugly tattered fence that graces 90th and ave I or the ugly fence that is in rag's on sierra hwy at the defunct E-Solar plant.

Now don't get me wrong Solar guys This is better than nothing, but it does remove the distraction on the Ave "D" when one is driving. It still looks like CRAP and alien to the area (still Stalag 12)

You know at the January 12 meeting your boy Larry stated to Norm and the meeting that he will attend our functions and be a good neighbor(becoming an old weezzzz). I hear at weevil that you boys have a weekly feast and pat yourself on the back and extol the virtues of hiring local, how wonderful your company is for giving locals jobs (Bull_hit). How about inviting some local officials at your gala party to smooth over ruffled feathers and be a "Good Neighbor"( weezzzz)

Your VP in charge of construction at the meeting showed a graph which detailed the employment factors and 45% went to out of state electricians about 70 people (not registered in our halls), around 30% or more are from corp. and from out of state (can't remember the # I was Told) an less than 25 percent are locals doing grunt labor (this counts the people that rent or bought houses and claim to be locals but still drive out of state plates on their vehicles, this possible is a moot subject because there is an effort to force registration so it doesn't look so bad )

Your New owners should be ashamed of themselves hiding in the clouds and ignoring the Locals. They are going to be here for 20 years and they don't have the pinash to at least introduce themselves. Hell if they are so high and mighty and "RICH" that "we-uns dersert Peoples are beneith their dignity" and socializing with desert trash is out of the question. You sure know how to F_uck up the area with your Cancerous atrocity that you are creating without even once informing the locals, Oh I am sorry you went to Antelope Acres, 12 miles away, and got their blessing. That's like having a project in Palmdale and getting permits and wooing the people of Mojave to build a cesspool plant in Palmdale.

It would behoove the Excelon owners to ensure that the "Local" residents are kept informed and that the secrecy, bulling and sneakiness is curtailed. You are building in our back yard and we have to wake up to the pounding, heavy equipment and eye sore you are creating, the least you can do is help support and introduce yourselves to us.

Interesting numbers.--Does this tell you anything?

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:26:20 -0800

Interesting numbers.
Does this tell you anything?

There are actually two messages here. The first is very
interesting, but the second is absolutely astounding - and explains a lot.

A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very
interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International
Health Organization.

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years
after diagnosis:

U.S. --- 65%

England --- 46%

Canada --- 42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received
treatment within six months:

U.S.--- 93%

England--- 15%

Canada --- 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it
within six months:

U.S. --- 90%

England --- 15%

Canada --- 43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within
one month:

U.S. -- 77%

England --- 40%

Canada --- 43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million
people:

U.S.--- 71

England --- 14

Canada --- 18

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are
in "excellent health":

U.S. --- 12%

England--- 2%

Canada --- 6%

And now for the last statistic:

National Health Insurance?

U.S.--- NO

England --- YES

Canada--- YES

Check this last set of statistics!!

The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is a real-life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages.

T. Roosevelt.................... 38%

Taft.................................. 40%

Wilson ........................... 52%

Harding........................... 49%

Coolidge......................... 48%

Hoover............................ 42%

F. Roosevelt................... 50%

Truman........................... 50%

Eisenhower.................... 57%

Kennedy......................... 30%

Johnson......................... 47%

Nixon.............................. 53%

Ford................................ 42%

Carter............................. 32%

Reagan........................... 56%

GH Bush......................... 51%

Clinton ............................ 39%

GW Bush........................ 55%

Obama..................... 8%

This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration:
only 8% of them have ever worked in private business!

That's right! Only eight percent---the least, by far, of the
last 19 presidents! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business?

How can the president of a major nation and society, the one
with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And when it's the same for 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They've spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs or as "community organizers." They should have been in an employment line.

County wants 'dark skies' for rural eyes

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:11:23 -0800

AV Press
January 27 2012

County wants 'dark skies' for rural eyes

By: Charles F. Bostwick

Aiming to keep stars visible at night in rural Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County supervisors approved a "dark skies" law that requires new homes and other major development projects in unincorporated areas to shield outdoor lights and take other steps to reduce nighttime glare.

"Dark skies are one of the many qualities that set rural areas apart from urban and suburban communities," Regional Planning Director Richard J. Bruckner said in a report Tuesday to supervisors. "Growth and sky glow from excessive outdoor lighting is diminishing the view of the universe in rural areas and smaller towns, as well as within urban areas. While excessive light may cause a nuisance to some, it also wastes money and electricity and results in unnecessary emissions of greenhouse gases."

Affecting Quartz Hill, Lake Los Angeles, Acton, Littlerock and other areas of the Antelope Valley south of Avenue A and outside the city limits of Lancaster and Palmdale, the new law also requires modification to reduce glare from lights at county facilities such as Public Works equipment yards, officials said.

"For privately owned property, it is not retroactive. For public facilities, it is retroactive, and they need to comply in six months," said Edel Vizcarra, planning deputy to Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky made the 2010 proposal for the law.

Existing streetlights need not be changed, Vizcarra said, but new ones must comply with the new standards, which include flat-glass lenses instead of so-called "drop glass" lenses to reduce glare.

For new business developments, outdoor lights must be equipped with automatic timers to turn them off after 10 p.m., except for businesses open later. While they must be fitted with automatic timers, the outdoor lights also may have motion detectors to turn them on if any movement occurs on the property.

Parks' lights must be shielded so they do not glare off the property, and new homes' outside lights must not shine excessive light - measured at no more than 0.5 foot-candles, or half as bright as the light from a birthday cake candle a foot away - onto neighboring property.

Similar dark-sky lighting rules addressing street lighting, hooding, preventing off-site illumination and reducing glare are already in place in a number of Antelope Valley communities through their individual community standards districts, adopted after discussion by town councils. Those include the Leona Valley, Acton, Juniper Hills, southeast Antelope Valley, Elizabeth Lake, Lake Hughes and San Francisquito Canyon standards districts.

The new ordinance, however, applies to all of the unincorporated Antelope Valley, as well as unincorporated areas in the Santa Clarita Valley and the Santa Monica Mountains.

cbostwick@avpress.compro

They Stole His Money, Her Money & Mine Too

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:50:42 -0800

Carpe Libertatem

Tuesday, January 24

They Stole His Money, Her Money & Mine Too

Column by Douglas Herman, posted on January 24, 2012

Exclusive to STR

Just before the holidays, I walked into my local Wells Fargo bank to cash a small birthday check one of my sisters gave to me. Imagine my surprise when the teller informed me my small savings account was closed. I told her she was mistaken, and asked her to please check again; I knew I had about $800 in the account and I never use the ATM and don’t even have an ATM card. So she looked again and said she was sorry.

Empty. Damn.

So I went home and called my brother who shared the account. He looked up the account online and said all $800 was withdrawn and that a lien was put against my hard-earned dollars by the state of California, allegedly for back taxes owed in 1998. At the time, I lived in California but never worked there. I worked in Alaska, so I wondered how California felt entitled to go into my account and just take my money. Later I got my paper statement from Well Fargo and this is what it said.

11/ 9 Ending Daily Balance: $805.87

11/ 16 Legal Order To Withhold: $705.87

11/ 16 Legal Processing Fee: $100.00

Ending Balance on 11/ 30: $0.00

DAMN.

About a week later, I found myself in California visiting relatives. As I drove along I-405, I noticed a huge billboard for Wells Fargo. “You’ll Know When You’ve Been Bad or Good.” I smiled to myself. The Too Big to Fail Banks are also home to the Too Big To Jail bankers and their DC enablers. People are robbed blind every day, in broad daylight, as they say.

After WF allowed the plunder of my account, they sent me lots of nice letters in the mail. One even stated: “With you when the season calls for celebrating” and assuring me that they were on my side to keep my credit rating strong, etc.

I like California, I really do. A great, golden state with lots of upside, California is part of our mythical, historical, myth-making America. Unfortunately, like a lot of states, California is basically bankrupt.

About the same time California got the legal “right” to empty my account, one of California’s public officials, decided to pepper spray peaceful protestors at the University of California at Davis. Seems the campus police chief, Annette Spicuzza, who is basically a taxpayer-subsidized public servant for a bankrupt state, earns $140,000 PER YEAR. So in a way, my stolen $800 went to pay Annette the equivalent of 1-2 days of her salary. Must be tough fighting crime at a California campus. Not long after that incident, Annette was put on suspended (paid) leave. No money was taken from her account.

They Stole His Money Too

About the same time my account was emptied to pay police chief Annette, somebody decided to steal more than a billion dollars from the private, segregated accounts of 600,000 investors at MF Global. One of those allegedly secure accounts belonged to Gerald Celente. Seems Gerald was about to take delivery of a large amount of precious metal, which he had paid in full to acquire. Instead, at the last moment, his money and his metal disappeared, along with the so-called secured funds of some 600,000 other investors at MFG.

Seems the head of MF Global, Jon “The Don” Corzine, simply pleaded ignorance and washed his hands of the entire, blatant, broad-daylight embezzlement. Much like Jerry Sandusky washed his hands of the whole pedophile scandal at Penn State University. Corzine and Sandusky got away with screwing little people, unlike Bernie Madoff, who swindled the wrong BIG people. Corzine has BIG, connected friends and so Corzine continues to walk free today. In a Kleptocracy, you can steal with impunity IF you steal from powerless little people and are protected by other powerful BIG people like yourself.

What? You didn’t realize you and your kids are being robbed and raped daily? Eisenhower stated it in pure English for those trusting Americans who have a difficult time understanding their native language: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

Theft.

So my meager $800 goes to pay the SWAT team of pepper sprayers at UC Davis, uniformed officers who should have called in with “blue flu.” Meanwhile, YOUR hard-earned taxpayer dollars goes to pay the $2 billion for the Egyptian thugs who beat up the “blue bra girl” and killed hundreds of other peaceful protestors. And your children’s accounts are emptied of $2 billion to pay for the Israeli special forces who killed some peaceful protestors on a ship heading to Gaza, still in international waters. Your stolen tax payer dollars also pay for the SWAT team that killed an American veteran here in Tucson, Arizona. Shot dozens of times in cold blood and left to die. Theft and murder on a grand scale in broad daylight and no one held accountable.

They Stole Her Money Too

When a Kleptocracy spins completely out of control, as this American Kleptocracy appears to be doing, ordinary people begin to lose ALL confidence in the swindle no matter what political party the swindlers claim to represent. Once the confidence is lost, once the Con game is open and exposed, the game collapses. Soon, enough people begin to sound the alarm, the rigged game is over. Swindler’s List suddenly becomes a blacklist of con artists to avoid.

About the same time Gerald’s account was stolen, along with another half million investors, a woman named Ann Barnhardt, a small trader in agricultural futures, wrote her clients this letter.

“Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management. It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.

“The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.”

Their money was stolen. Her livelihood was stolen. Your children’s future was stolen. In a kleptocracy, theft is the First Commandment. Denial of justice is the Second.

The single silver lining in this whole litany of theft is that the Powers That Be have probably picked the two best worst people to swindle. Gerald and Ann resemble a couple of pit bulls, and you can hear and heed their words on a hundred videos. At least until the kleptocrats shut the Internet down completely.

Postscript: The huge concerted effort to discredit Constitutionalists and sound money advocates like Ron Paul continues on a regular basis. Recently, one columnist named Kevin Drum went so far as to accuse Ron of being "a full-bore crank" and in favor of "gold-buggery" (sic). As if Ron was a sidekick of Jerry Sandusky in the pedophile scandal. Gold buggery = boy buggery, right?

I'm surprised the mainstream media hasn't somehow linked Ron Paul to Jon Benet Ramsey's disappearance or the Bernie Madoff missing billions. Give them enough time and they might.

ANTONOVICH TO ATTEND GROUNDBREAKING OF Q.H. STORM DRAIN PROJECT

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:15:11 -0800

Thursday, January 26, 2012 12:31 PM

Please invite friends, businesses, and neighbors to this event

All the best

ANTONOVICH TO ATTEND GROUNDBREAKING OF QUARTZ HILL STORM DRAIN PROJECT

WHO: Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works

WHAT: Supervisor Antonovich will attend the groundbreaking of the new Quartz Hill Storm Drain Project.

To enhance public safety and improve mobility for the Quartz Hill residents, the Los Angeles County will initiate the construction of a flood control system in the downtown Quartz Hill business district and adjacent areas.

This vital project will vastly improve the long term maintenance and condition of the roads and remediate the flooding issues that have plagued area residents and motorist for years.

WHEN: Monday, January 30, 2012 at 10:00 am

WHERE: 42010 50th Street West

Quartz Hill , CA 93536

Norm Hickling, Deputy to Supervisor Antonovich

Antelope Valley Field Office

1113 Ave M-4, Suite A

Palmdale, Ca 93551

661-726-3600

QUARTZ HILL GROUND BREAKING CEREMONY (FLOOD CONTROL)

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:13:14 -0800

Michael D. Antonovich, Supervisor, County of Los Angeles

and the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works

Quartz Hill Flood Control

Ground-Breaking Ceremony January 30, 2012
10:00 a.m. 42010 50th Street West, Quartz Hill, 93536

RSVP to Anna Lopez at (626) 458-4042 | For additional information on the project please see dpw.lacounty.gov/go/quartzhill

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich Quartz Hill Storm Drain Project Ground Breaking Ceremony

WAHOO we are rich ---we are rich

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:16:21 -0800

AVPress
January 25 2012
The question: Turbine or not turbine?

By: Craig Currier

LANCASTER - Signaling they won't approve giant wind turbines on hillsides and farmland south and west of the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors stopped two alternative energy developers from putting up a series of 200-foot-tall meteorological data-collecting towers on their project sites.

The decision, which was made unanimously by the five-member board, could result in the end of one proposed project and a massive redesign of another as county officials said the ruling shows the supervisors are concerned about dangers the tall structures pose.

"We definitely had an issue with 198-foot-tall 'met' towers," said Edel Vizcarra, who serves as 5th District County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich's planning deputy. "The wind turbines pose another set of questions."

The vote was a victory for residents of the far western Antelope Valley who are fighting to keep their communities free from what they describe as "an ocean of solar panels" and hillsides covered with wind turbines.

However, county officials drew a distinction between the wind turbines and solar-power projects proposed elsewhere in the rural western Valley communities. Vizcarra said there are several solar projects in the area that are moving through the planning process swiftly.

"Some people might not like them, but typically you're going to accept a solar project over a wind project where you don't have the same impacts to the wildlife," he said.

Tony Bell, an Antonovich spokesman, added: "Wind and solar are two very different things."

While thousands of wind turbines exist in the Kern County portion of the Antelope Valley north of Avenue A, and more are coming, there are no wind-energy farms south of Avenue A. Previous wind farm proposals as long ago as the 1980s were blocked by Los Angeles County officials after community opposition.

The board's vote overruled an earlier decision by the county's Planning Commission, which awarded a conditional-use permit to two companies - Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources and Oregon-based Element Power - allowing them to erect 198-foot-tall test towers on their respective project sites.

Vizcarra said the companies already are using 60-foot-tall test towers to collect data and may continue to do so because no permit is required for such structures shorter than 80 feet in height.

Speaking to the board, representatives from Element Power said by denying the taller test towers, the county is preventing the company from properly studying and preparing an environmental impact report for the proposal.

"This is about doing the environmental assessment and doing the studies which are necessary to make the determination as to whether it is appropriate to site wind towers here," said Jerry Neuman, an attorney representing Element Power. "This is like putting up a traffic line to get an accurate traffic count."

Nat Parker, the company's project manager for Element's proposed Wildflower Green Energy Farm in the area of 170th Street West and Lancaster Road, said he understands there will be effects on the community, but said the western Antelope Valley "boasts the most powerful peak load wind resource in the state."

Element Power's project proposes a mix of solar and wind energy, and county officials said it is possible the company will redesign its proposal.

Parker did not return phone and email messages seeking comment Tuesday after the hearing.

Designs for NextEra's Blue Sky Wind Energy Center called for as many as 90 500-foot-tall wind turbines on its approximately 7,500-acre site, which sits on Portal Ridge next to the proposed Element Power site.

Representatives from the company were not at Tuesday's hearing, and their conditional-use permit was denied, too.

Speaking to the board Tuesday, residents voiced concerns about potentially negative environmental impacts the projects will have on wildlife and plant life in the area, as well as the effect on the rural landscape.

Many also referred to a Fairmont Town Council meeting last week during which many residents urged council members to oppose the project formally with a letter to the board. The council, they said, took no position on the project.

Some residents said the council had already begun negotiating a community benefits package with Element Power and other companies that could net the community millions of dollars over a period of several years. The money, they said, would be in exchange for the council's support in building the projects.

"There's so much corruption and so much money," said Jeff Olesh, who identified himself as a longtime resident of the Lakes and Fairmont area. "At this point, Fairmont is being offered - not on paper but verbally - $2 million. It was common knowledge that (Element) had offered the Fairmont Town Council $2 million if they don't oppose the wind turbines. So their vote in non-opposition of the met towers is a result of this $2 million hanging out there."

Kings Canyon resident Judy Watson said the Fairmont Town Council showed a "total disregard to the community" in failing to convey residents' comments to the county in a formal manner.

About 25 people watched the public hearing from a satellite viewing area at the Lancaster Library. Many addressed the Board of Supervisors from a camera set up in the room. Others spoke in the Los Angeles board meeting room.

Those who were sitting in the Lancaster library watching the meeting on a television screen stood and cheered loudly after Antonovich's motion to deny the project was supported unanimously by the board's other four members.

The board made its decision two months after delaying the hearing. An Antonovich aide said the supervisor asked for the continuation so county planning staff could study the environmental impacts of the test towers.

ccurrier@avpress.com