Off the I-15

Sources within the California Highway Patrol and residents living near the intersection of State Route 58 and Flower Street in Hinkley have linked the four juveniles suspected of obstructing the highway with railroad ties, cinder blocks and tires to several incidents of vandalism in the area as well.

Office Greg Smoak of the CHP said they are investigating the four kids’ involvement.

Janice Bayer, who lives near the intersection of Flower and 58, said in one incident, all the exercise equipment, fire pits and other objects ended up in a neighbor’s pool.

— Aaron Aupperlee

Skate shop?

As construction in Dana Park attracts interest, eager skaters are waiting for the July opening of the city’s skate park in Dana Park.

Two vendors have proposed using part of the Al Vigil Swim Center for skate shops selling skateboards and safety equipment alongside other skate gear.

Michael Sanchez of Majic Board Shop submitted one of these proposals. His proposal suggests his shop would be open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. In his proposal, he requites that he pay only utilities and the cost of needed improvements for six months and that negotiations for a fair market rate follow.

Steven Frazier submitted the second proposal, which proposes paying the same as a vendor at the Sportspark and a percentage of revenue. Frazier’s proposal suggests also that he would volunteer time to work with skaters at the park. Expenses would be covered by personal funds and investors, according to the proposal. Suggested business hours are noon to 8 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

City staff are researching fair market value and will make a recommendation to the City Council at an upcoming meeting. Meanwhile, Parks and Recreation Department coordinator Jeanette Hayhurst has dreams such as skate camps and demonstrations for parents that she’d like to see happen in the park eventually. Perhaps a forum for skaters to teach one another the etiquette of skating (i.e., how far to stay away from other skaters).

She’s confident that the park — designed with input from area skaters — will reduce incidents of illegal skateboarding around town.

“This is the right place to skate, and it should be the best place to skate,” she said.

Programs

The skate park is the most visible parks and rec. project in the works, but the department is also working on a number of other goals, including improving and increasing programs. Hayhurst said she expects 2008 to be a “breakout” year for parks and rec. programming — classes she hopes will be financially self-sustaining.

According to a public document, the department’s 2007 goals are:
1) Staffing & Employment Development
2) Obtain additional funding & leverage resources
3) Conduct safety & Water Audits
4) Improve and increase programs

Some of the specific sub-goals stated include:
• Customer service training for employees
• Obtain grants for Al Vigil Center
• Seek advice and possibly funding to reduce water use
• Re-establish programs (classes, tournaments, summer programs) that have been lost
• Establish new programs (striving for each program to at least “break even”)
- Clean up hiring process
- Create a city-wide master calendar of recreational events

— Stevie St. John

Monday night’s City Council meeting ended in a fury of motions over the proposed $65,000 contract with Zenon Environmental Corporation to supply membrane-engineering services to the city for the new wastewater-treatment plant.

Council member Joe Gomez started it all when he moved the recommended action listed on the agenda, essentially to pay Zenon $65,000 for “special engineering services” and added direction to city staff to bring back a breakdown of all the costs associated with the new facility, something Council member Julie Hackbarth-McIntyre requested.

Mayor Lawrence Dale killed Gomez’s motion for lack of a second, Dale said, and then proposed a motion to cancel the contract with HDR, the firm hired by the city to build the city to build the new wastewater-treatment facility, and hire a different company, Micromedia, to build the facility. City Attorney Yvette Abich jumped in and said that the mayor could not make that motion at this time because it was outside the scope of the agenda item, the contract with Zenon.

So Dale made a substitute motion to reject the contract and asked the city staff to bring back the issue at a later date.

But they weren’t done. Council member Steve Curran asked Gomez to amend his motion to add direction to city staff to strike a clause from the contract requiring the city to provide inspection and on-site testing of Zenon’s equipment.

Gomez amended his motion, and Curran seconded it.

Just before the motion went to a vote, the mayor made another substitute motion to reject the contract and directed city staff to find a different direction. Hackbarth-McIntyre seconded the substitute motion.

Just before the substitute motion went to a vote, Gomez attempted to make another substitute motion to approve the contract. This did not go through.

When the dust, or motions, cleared, the council voted 3-2, with Council member Steve Curran and Joe Gomez against, to reject the contract.

But why? Why was the mayor’s motion put to a vote before Gomez’s?

Abich explained it to me after the meeting. Under Rosenberg’s Rules of Order, the parliamentary procedure the City Council operates under, the council must first deal with the last motion made, in this case, the mayor’s motion, she said.

According to the rules:

“First, the chair would deal with the [last] motion on the floor, the substitute motion … If the substitute motion passes, it would be a substitute for the basic motion and would eliminate it. The first motion would be moot.”

Abich said that once the mayor’s motion to reject the contract passed, 3-2, the council could not vote on Gomez’s amended motion to do the opposite, approve the contract. Case closed.

Check out the action for yourself on the city’s Webcast of the meeting.

Some other notes about Rosenberg’s Rules of Order:
• Written by Yolo County Superior Court Judge Dave Rosenberg while he was a Yolo County Supervisor.
• First appeared in Western City magazine in August 2003.
• Designed as an alternative to Robert’s Rules of Order, used by the British Parliament.
• Available online here

Fort Irwin’s Blackhawks featured in “Transformers” trailer

“Transformers,” the movie spin-off from the popular children’s toy, has not hit the big screen yet, but its trailer is lighting it up on the Internet. On www.youtube.com, the most clicked-on trailer already has 3,881,843 hits.

Featured prominently in the trailer, for about less than a second at the 57 second mark, are the Fort Irwin Blackhawks. In the snip-it, the copters swoop over the Hoover Dam. According to Chief Warrant Officer Eric Metcalf, Fort Irwin’s helicopters are unmistakable in the movie because they are missing certain parts that a tactical, deployable Blackhawk would have.

For example, Fort Irwin’s Blackhawks do not have large-caliber machine guns mounted on the side. They also do not have radar jamming equipment on their tails or “these orange mirror things” below their rudders, according to Metcalf.

Interestingly, Metcalf said he and his crew never flew over the dam. Shots of them flying through Los Angeles were cut and spliced with dam shots to create the trailer scene.

“Movie magic,” Metcalf said.

Check out the “Transformers” trailer below.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

(from www.youtube.com)

— Aaron Aupperlee, staff writer

Barstow broke out its banners today. Along Main Street, Mountain View, Muriel and other Barstow roadways, the red, white and blue of the American flag told us something was up.

Today — and every June 14 since 1916 — is Flag Day. Established in 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson, Flag Day later became law in 1949 under President Harry Truman. The law requires the president to make a Flag Day proclamation each year.

Here are snippets from President George Bush’s proclamation:

“The American Flag represents freedom and has been an enduring symbol of our Nation’s ideals since the earliest days of our Nation. Wherever it flies, we are reminded of America’s unity and in the great cause of liberty and justice for all.”

“Americans have long flown our flag as a sign of patriotism and gratitude for the blessings of liberty. We also pledge allegiance to the flag as an expression of loyalty to our country and to the belief in the American creed of freedom and justice.”

Read Bush’s full proclamation here.

For more flag history, check out:
• A flag timeline
• Flag facts
• The Library of Congress

But what I would really like to know is…Where do all those flags around Barstow come from?

— Aaron Aupperlee, staff writer

With less than two hours to deadline at the Desert Dispatch, a call came into the office from our sister paper in Victorville. A freelance photographer gave them a tip about a plane making an emergency landing somewhere off the I-40 near mile marker #7. The photog was offering to go, but we eagerly took on the mission for ourselves. We could always use a good photo.

We called the local CHP to check the information, but no one at the station had any information. Nothing was yet on the CHP Web site.

Matt Peters, the sports editor, and I grabbed our notebooks and a camera and headed for the door. We were somewhere near mile marker #2 on the I-40 before Matt noticed that we were precariously low on gas.

We made it to mile marker #7 at Daggett Yermo Road without a plane spotting. We continued on to Hidden Springs Road before turning around and exiting at Daggett Yermo Road.

In dire need of gas, we stopped to refuel and wonder how something so large and shiny could be so elusive. After asking a few employees if they had seen a plane, we decided to head back to the office empty-handed. The moment we entered the office, jokes about our incompetence filled the newsroom.

Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang. It was CHP officer Greg Smoak letting me know that a plane had landed in the desert but that it was being handled by the sheriff’s department — and it was at mile marker #37, not #7.

I knew I could spot a plane in the desert — just not from 30 miles away.

— David Heldreth, Staff Writer

LUDLOW — A personal aircraft made an emergency landing Tuesday afternoon on a road just off Interstate 40 near Ludlow.

Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the twin-engine Cessna 340 lost power in both engines and made an emergency landing on what he described as a rough road 300 yards north of the I-40. The pilot, the only passenger in the plane, sustained minor injuries, Gregor said.

“You’d be surprised how many times planes go down and the end result is a good one,” Gregor said.

The plane, however, was not so fortunate. Officer Greg Smoak of the California Highway Patrol said the plane suffered significant damage after it landed, losing landing gear and spinning to a stop. CHP officers were first on the scene, followed by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies and an FAA investigator.

The plane, part owned by Samuel Salazar from Jamul, was en route from Bullhead City, Ariz., to the Ontario Airport when it went down at around 3:30 p.m. The FAA and sheriff’s aviation department are currently investigating the incident.

Emergency plane landings and the unfortunate crash have made the news before in the Barstow area. In 1999, an experimental unmanned NASA aircraft crashed on the I-40 near Barstow. NASA pilots lost control of the plane after it left their airspace and it went down. A man from Yermo died in 2001 when his home-made gyrocopter crashed near Mule Canyon Road in Yermo, and a corporate Lear Jet crashed near Helendale in 2003.

Recently, engine troubles caused movie-star Patrick Swayze to make an emergency landing at the Barstow-Daggett Airport. Swayze safely landed in December 2006 despite a heavy crosswind after he blew a rod in the right engine of his Cessna 414.

Patrick Swayze gives the thumbs up with his two dogs after his plane landed safely at the Barstow-Daggett Airport due to engine failure.

— Aaron Aupperlee, staff writer

What didn’t make the front page

On Friday, Brig. Gen. Robert Cone tromped around the box on last time to say goodbye to the Iraqi-American men and women who live in Fort Irwin’s simulated Iraqi villages. They were added to the Fort Irwin’s training regiment under Cone’s watch to further increase the realism. They speak Arabic, cook authentic food and carry out their days much like they would in Iraq.

Cone has repeatedly called them true patriots for their sacrifice in the box. The living quarters are a far stretch from comfortable, and many leave their families behind when they do a stint in the desert.

John Wagstaffe, the public information officer at Fort Irwin, said every single Iraqi-American wanted a photo with Cone when he met with them.

When President George Bush visited Fort Irwin in April, Cone made sure some of the actors and actresses met the Commander in Chief. Bassam “Sam” Kalasho, who plays the deputy mayor of the fictional town of Wasl, said meeting Bush was “a dream come true.” Before the president landed, Kalasho said he planned to walk the president through the village and explain how he helps people learn about the Iraqi culture and language.

Cone relinquished command of Fort Irwin and the National Training Center on Monday morning. He will take over command of the Combined Security Transition Command in Kabul, Afghanistan, at the end of June. He will oversee the training of Afghan police and security forces.

Cone’s replacement, Gen. Dana Pittard, will assume command at Fort Irwin in August. Pittard is currently commanding troops in Iraq.

Cannons fire in honor of Gen. Robert Cone who relinquished command of Fort Irwin on Monday.

— Aaron Aupperlee, staff writer

When the final diploma changed hands at Barstow High School’s graduation ceremony, it marked the end of Graduation Season 2007 in the Desert Dispatch newsroom. For the past few weeks, we Desert Dispatch reporters have shared many a special nights with graduates and their families, prodding them for quotes, asking them what comes next and probably getting in the way a bit to get that perfect shot.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been invited to many graduation parties. It’s OK though. There’s always next year’s season.

And we’ve heard a lot of graduation speeches. Looking back on the speeches we’ve heard, the ceremonies we’ve covered, the photos and articles published, it is easy to assume that the graduation story is a cliché story. But it’s not. Because for each one of those graduates we covered, that story, that night, that graduation, was the coolest thing.

Before BHS’s graduation on Thursday, I talked to one graduate, Brittania, who told me that her day thus far had actually been pretty bad. My own sister, I said to her, scored the winning goal in a regional playoff soccer game right before her high school graduation. It was for the other team. But Betsy didn’t let the season ending own goal spoil her night. She smiled and cried through the ceremony like every other graduate. And even as Brittania walked away from me, she turned around and said, “But it’s still exciting.”

Graduating is cool. It’s exciting. And no matter how many Dr. Seuss, Mark Twain, Robert Kennedy or Robert Frost quotes we hear, it is never cliché. (Sorry BHS grad-speakers, I’m not picking on you, you all are just fresh in my mind.) For each graduate, their graduation night is marked by those speeches and will be forever remember by them.

So as I drove back to the office after the BHS graduation, trying to organize all the parts of the story before I hit my desk, fingers run, I had to pause for a moment. The radio played Good Riddance, by Green Day, my class’, the Forest Hills Northern Class of 2002’s, graduation song.

Yeah, it’s cliché.

– Aaron Aupperlee, staff writer