A gala anniversary

One of the things that make the local community theatre so appealing is the “family” atmosphere. It has become a fraternal organization for many participants in the Chino Community Theatre (CCT) and its offspring, the Chino Community Children’s Theatre (CCCT), as the 25th anniversary celebration showed last weekend. Children who started in the CCCT are now grown participants in CCT or have expanded their careers into other related areas.

This has made Chino’s performing arts program more appealing to those who have followed it over the years, and has produced an esprit de corps that has brought national recognition for our little theatre.

The silver anniversary production was a gem. Unfortunately, it was a never to be seen again event over one weekend that was missed by too many people.

Combined with a snacks and desert reception ahead of time, the 26-piece revue featured favorites from past performances, including many who played the same roles way back to the first production of “Harvey” in 1984.

Participants in the theatre do not get paid. It is a labor of love for them, which was quite evident during the revue. These theatre “hobbyists” are very professional. And when they aren’t on stage, the actors can be found as part of the unsung production crew that provides the sets, lighting, sound and handles details required to keep the theatre rolling.

There was only one drawback to the unforgettable event—the theatre was only half full on the two evenings, meaning a lot of local residents missed a treat.
CCT has announced its 2010 lineup. Hopefully during the new year more residents will take advantage of one of Chino Valley’s great entertainment assets.

Copyright 2009 - Champion Newspapers - Published Novemeber 26, 2009

A big step for FD

On Monday afternoon ground was broken for two new fire stations, which will be completed in about a year. They are the new Station 1 and a badly needed training center, at Fourth and Schaefer between the Chino services facility and the Chino Industrial Park; and Station 7, at Ross Avenue and Riverside Drive.

The new Station 1 will replace Chino’s first stand-alone fire station on Central Avenue, across from the city hall, now a 55-year-old relic which will eventually be razed.
Relocating No. 1 presented a problem and a solution. The solution was increased protection for the industrial area of Chino, which has grown tremendously since the eighties. Originally it was to have been located farther south, where an acre of land was purchased by the city on Chino Hills Parkway at Telephone. But the addition of the training center made this impractical because there wasn’t enough space. Placing it across from the city yard on Schaefer meant the two could share some maintenance facilities.

The problem was that the relocation would take the station farther away from the “heart” of Chino. In the northeast area particularly, response times are substandard because of the distance from stations 1 and 5 (Ramona and the freeway). The solution was to build another station—No. 7.

New Station 1 is the fourth to replace an older fire house. The first was the present Station 1 opened in 1954 at the new civic center on the old park site on the east side of Central. The original fire headquarters was rented from a lodge hall at Seventh and D streets, now site of the library parking lot. It was next door to the first city offices opened when Chino incorporated in 1910.

Station 1 was remodeled in the eighties to give the department administration more space and accommodate new equipment, which required larger doors.

Next to be replaced was Station 2, originally built for $20,000 on Eucalyptus Avenue near Pipeline in 1964 to provide protection to the hills area, which had begun to develop more with the appearance of Glenmeade. In February 1999 a new Station 2 was opened on Butterfield Ranch Road to provide better service to the growing southern Chino Hills area, The old station has been used for training classes. Its area is covered by Station 6 on Peyton Avenue north of Grand, opened in 1990 by the county just before the fire district became independent.

The third replacement was Station 3, opened at 7550 Kimball Avenue in early 2007 between the airport and the new Preserve development. The airport station had been housed in makeshift quarters on the north side of the airport since 1972.

The cities provide the land and buildings for new stations. Funds stations come from builders and community service districts, usually from fees placed on new construction or applied to property tax bills. The new ones are financed mostly with revenue bonds sold by the Chino Redevelopment Agency.

Some equipment and all personnel must be provided by the fire district. In Chino Hills, the new fire administration building in the civic center has been financed with development impact fees and community service district revenue, as was the rest of the new civic center complex.
Station 1 doesn’t involve new equipment or personnel, but Station 7 at Ross and Riverside will require 12 firefighters (four per shift), an estimated $1 million plus increase to the fire budget. Its red pumper is already on the scene, housed mostly at Station 1. A second ladder truck will eventually be kept at the new Station 1. Truck No. 1 is kept at Station 6 in Chino Hills.

At present, the fire department uses standard pumpers for all calls, backed up by the ladder truck on structure fires. Each engine company has four firefighter/paramedics, including a captain, and the engineer who drives. During the past 10 years, the standard company was increased from three to four to meet federal requirements that no indoor fire be attacked until there are two backup personnel on the scene.

Earlier, the district abandoned its two-man paramedic units, which once permitted faster and less labor-intensive emergency medical responses.

While the new utilization of equipment made sense from a fire standpoint, it has been more cumbersome and expensive for medical calls, extending response times. Medical calls now exceed fire calls about 10 to 1. As the community grows, medical calls have been increasing and fire calls diminishing, because of better construction and fire prevention.

Take away oven and dryer fires and spot grass fires along Euclid avenue, and the rate of fire calls would drop significantly. On the other hand, the department, because of state laws and environmental regulations, has assumed a larger role in handling hazardous material calls, including many small incidents that were taken care of by city workers with a good nose for bad stuff.
Of course, the need for handling wildfires and disaster emergencies will always confront the department’s manpower and equipment capabilities.

In the future, with new stations to equip, the fire department’s planners are faced with a double dilemma—how to handle its high number of emergency medical responses faster and more efficiently, in face of tighter budgets. Aside from operational solutions, financial answers include paramedic service fees and cost recovery for negligent fires. Getting the state and insurance companies to fork over for responses to freeway crashes, which usually involve out of area drivers, would help.

Meanwhile, another station is being considered, to fill a growing “blind spot” in Chino Hills once served by old Station 2. Sites being considered are on Woodview Avenue at Pipeline and on Eucalyptus Avenue near Chino Hills Parkway.

Copyright 2009 - Champion Newspapers - Published Novemeber 21, 2009

Oil in them thar hills



There’s oil in the city of Chino Hills. Right now it’s kind of sitting there waiting for legal entanglements to be straightened out and the price to go up.



There are a couple of dozen producing wells on the Abacherli and Lamb ranches in the southern part of the city, below Butterfield Ranch. The presence of oil has been known for more than a century, and from time to time attempts have been made to extract it. Only a few were successful.



The southwest hills area is pocked with unsuccessful dry and capped wellsites. Over the years the search has ranged from the northern Chino city limits to the Prado Basin, most producing more excitement than oil.



The real incentive to develop oil in Chino Valley didn’t come until after automobiles made their appearance after the turn of the 20th century. However, discoveries of tar deposits in the hills, up back of the present Los Serranos Country Club, led to the use of bitumen to pave Chino’s early day streets and sidewalks, when horses were the main mode of transportation.



Oil in our hills developed after the last ice age, which created a shifting of plates that created movement such as the Chino fault. This produced layers of shale and sandstone. The Chino Valley oil was apparently an extension of larger deposits to the west in the Puente Hills and San Gabriel Valley areas of Brea and Whittier, which were first discovered in 1884. During the drilling rush between 1890 and 1920, there were 500 derricks in the Whittier Hills.



A major incentive for drilling in the Chino Hills (also known to the west for awhile as the Puente Hills), was the opening of the sugar beet factory here, with machinery with a great appetite for crude.



The Champion in January 1890 noted that the newly formed Chino Oil Company was preparing to drill in our hills. However, the Puente Oil Company was the first major explorer. First it ran an 8-inch line from Fullerton to the Chino sugar factory grounds (at Fifth and G streets), where Puente established a refinery. The sugar factory annually used 50,000 barrels of “residium.” Around 1910, Puente was also getting oil from Soquel Canyon.



In March, 1897, the Champion noted that “the Puente Oil Company is turning out of its refinery here now some of the best illuminating oil we have been able to buy.” This pretty well summed up what oil was used for throughout the nation at that time—as a more stable replacement for kerosene and more available than whale oil. Then the horseless carriage changed the whole picture.



Puente lost its main customer in 1917 when the factory closed, and in 1922 the refinery was taken over the Shell Oil Company, and finally closed down two years later.T



he oldest oil operation in the valley was the Ranger well, east of Central Avenue and north of Pine Avenue, which proved dry. Another was on the E.C. Daniels ranch on Schaefer Avenue southeast of the city. Both were eventually seized for back taxes.



A well was drilled as far north as the present Francis and Ramona avenues, known as the Bruce, which went down 2,000 feet in 1925. Another well was drilled on the W.S. White ranch, also north of the city.



In 1925, W. J. Tebo, Chino’s renown constable, who had purchased land in the hills, displayed oil taken from five old wells, drilled in 1900, on a half section in the vicinity of the present Highway 71 and Euclid Avenue.



The Chino Corona United Oil Company drilled on the old Slaughter ranch in the same area in 1920, and in 1923 sold $1 stock, but found little oil. During the twenties the Mahala Oil Company drilled farther south on the Abacherli ranch. Tidewater Associated Oil was drilling just southwest of there in 1949 and active drilling continued for another 20 years in the area.



In the hills south of old Soquel Canyon Road, above the summit, a well designated as Belyea No. 1 blew its derrick crown sheet and spouted mud and gas, then burst into flames, thrilling numerous visitors who had gathered for the event. It ended as a blowout.



In 1933, the Champion reported that considerable oil was pumped from shallow depths in the south hills area, and that El Carol Oil and Gas Company had wells on the K-B (Kraemer and Backs) and Pellisier ranches, both south of Los Serranos.



I have a faded copy of a picture of an oil well sitting atop the hill now known as Riverside Terrace south of where Towne Avenue meets Riverside Drive. This is probably the drilling of the Gerrard, Grimes Oil Syndicate, which went down 1,500 feet, with no results. Earl Newman later had his home on this property for many years.



At one time the Abacherli ranch, owned by Swiss-born dairyman Louis Abacherli Sr., controlled more than 2,000 acres in the Prado Basin and adjoining hills. Mr. Abacherli bought the land from the McAlester company in 1929 after leasing it for 10 years for dairying and ranching. He had driven his herd of about 300 cattle up the Santa Ana Canyon from Los Alamitos after World War I, turning his spread into one of the finest alfalfa and dairy ranches in Southern California, according to the Champion of the day. The U.S. Corps of Engineers acquired about half of it when Prado Dam was built in 1940. His grandson Louis now lives on the hill portion of the ranch just south of Butterfield Ranch.



There’s still oil in them thar hills, but until the price gets back over $100 a barrel and stays, it will probably just remain there.

Copyright 2009 - Champion Newspapers - Published Novemeber 14, 2009

The world in 1956

On the global plus side over the past 53 years, relations between Russia and the United State have stabilized since the Rolltop Roundup became a staple of the Champion in 1956.

On the minus side, there was war in the Middle East then, and it seems that little has changed—only gotten worse despite the United States’ entry into directing peace efforts in that area.

While rummaging through a collection of old resource material the other day I found a bound report issued 50 years ago by journalism professor Wilbur Schramm, in which he compiled and had interpreted into English a single day’s issue from 14 great worldwide newspapers on “A Day of Crisis.”

Britain, France and Israel were bombing Egypt and Russia was surrounding Hungary with tanks.

That day, November 2, 1956, was significant to me because I had spent more than two years planning for it.

A month before I had become the new owner of the Champion. I had served time in the Navy Supply Corps, where I was involved in the planning for outloading supplies for just such a crisis as the battle for control of the Suez Canal.

After I left in July, 1956, I wondered what happened to our planning, because the Navy and the Marines had a hard time agreeing on how to load supply ships in support of a landing action. But that was now their problem. I was 3,000 miles and three months detached from active duty, more concerned with getting the Champion out after a part broke on our flatbed press, and getting a story in about the $600,000 school board issue planned for high school construction.

In the outside world, most of the press was either supporting or raging against Israel, Britain and France, who were attacking Egypt for its plan to shut down the Suez Canal. Surplus ships were already being sunk by Egypt to block the waterway. Israel moved into the Sinai Peninsula. The United States, which didn’t yet have, or want, a lead roll in the Near East, was urging its three allies to back off.

The New York Times said Britain had acted wrongly, but was provoked into it. Pravda, in Moscow, was adamant that the west had caused all the trouble.

All this overshadowed Russia’s move to subdue Hungarian freedom fighters. Hungary had formed a new government in its Soviet-bloc nation. The Soviets feared that this attempt at independence threatened the integrity of its Warsaw Pact coalition.

The United Nations called for a withdrawal of forces in the Suez region, and ignored Hungary’s plea for action against its oppressors.

The U.S. presidential campaign, Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, was in its last week. Adlai Stevenson was advocating an end to hydrogen bomb tests and the military draft. Incumbent Dwight Eisenhower called both a “design for disaster.” At the least, it was ill timed for the Democrats, the way world events were going. Adlai lost overwhelmingly, for the second time against Ike.

Also overshadowed was the significance of that fall’s Noble Physics Prize award to Dr. William Shockley, Dr. Walter H. Brattain and Dr. John Bardeen for their development nine years earlier of the transistor, a device which replaced bulky vacuum tubes in electronic communications and data processing. Transistors first came to wide public attention in hand-held, portable radios.

Eventually they took over the communications and computer industries, probably changing our way of life more than any other discovery since fire.

The Champion finally got its press fixed. What a way to celebrate its 69th birthday.
Now, thanks to transistors, we don’t have to worry about such things, unless our computers break down. We let someone else’s larger and faster press do the job. We just electronically send them the contents.

Happy 122nd.

Copyright 2009 - Champion Newspapers - Published Novemeber 7, 2009

She stole my heart

As we approached the two-story house on the edge of the woods in a section of California’s gold rush country, she was standing on the front porch, beckoning us in.
There was an expectant look on her face and an aura of happiness that she would soon be visited by members of her new extended family. Except for a picture, this was my first encounter with her. I saw a pretty face, a lithe body and an expectant gleam in her deep brown eyes.
Hopping from the car I asked “Are you Leila?”

When she acknowledged that she was I said, “I’m your Uncle Al.” I held out my hand. She shook it.

She continued at her welcoming post, beckoning to other members of the family and greeting them as they came in by car, a drive of about 10 windy miles from town. I was surprised by her lack of shyness and her understanding of what was said to her, for she had only flown to her new home from the Ukraine in August, with her new mother, my niece, a nurse, and her new father, a high school teacher.

She had been learning English from scratch.

Soon after welcoming us, Leila was lost in a whirl of cousins and dogs as though she’d been there all along, While we enjoyed lunch on the porch overlooking the woods, she ran up and threw her arms around me and gave me a hug—a thank you for the newly issued DVD of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs I had brought her. That night, after we left, she was quick to watch it. I’d forgotten that the movie was a little scary at first but I knew that those seven dwarfs would soon catch her fancy.

Leila had her ninth birthday in July. The last three years she had lived in an child café center (orphanage) in the Ukraine. She had been with a group of children who had briefly visited the United States in search of parents to adopt them.

Working through the sponsoring agency, my niece and her husband had become acquainted with Leila. Thus began the lengthy and complicated process of turning this little girl into a member of an American family.

This summer her parents-to-be spent six weeks abroad, wading and waiting through the adoption process. They visited her to make sure the fit was right, then were separated a couple of weeks so that none would have qualms about Leila going to her new home. There were not only the adoption procedures but much paperwork. Her birth certificate had to be located so she could get a passport. The whole process sometimes had to be sped up by offering cash incentives. It was an expensive undertaking from start to finish, and could have been derailed at any point.
Finally the way was cleared, and Leila flew with them to her new home in California. She brought with her only a few simple words of English.

When I met her I was amazed at how much she had picked up at home and school. A weekly trip to Sacramento where she spends a couple of hours with other Russian speaking children has helped the transition. Her school district had no bi-lingual help for her, except the school janitor, who knew the language. Her new mother volunteered time in her classroom to help her along.
Leila had already gotten to know two cousins from the Bay Area, and on that weekend another from Chino. What fun they all had together, and so did we adults plus the two slobbering, tail-wagging dogs that came with her adoptive family. It was a grand day. There was plenty of open space around the house to run in, and they made the most of it.

In December, Leila will meet even more of her extended family, most of who live between the Bay Area and Sacramento. She will meet Santa Claus, an annual visitor to the traditional family Christmas party that has been held for the last 80 years.

For the rest of us, Santa came early this year when he brought Leila to America.

Copyright 2009 - Champion Newspapers - Published October 31, 2009

A score of years ago

It was only 20 years ago that residents of Chino Hills were debating whether to annex to Chino or go independent. Even the fire district was run by the county, and state and federal highway agencies were approving environmental reports for the future Chino Valley (71) Freeway.
A lot has happened around here in the past 20 years, but some important things took place in 1989 that had an impact on our life today in Chino Valley.

On the east side of the valley Ontario and Chino were girding for a fight over the dairy preserve, the school district was looking for a new superintendent and to the west San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties were fighting over the opening of Grand Avenue, which had been completed on both sides of the county line.

In the outside world, the Berlin Wall fell, George H. W. Bush was president, unemployment was at a 14-year low, an earthquake hit the San Francisco area causing at least 89 deaths and doing massive damage, U.S. troops invaded Panama, and the government had to bail out the savings and loan industry.

The most significant changes were taking place in Chino Hills, where incorporation was being debated. Surveys were finding that hills residents preferred independence, even though it might be more expensive. Two years later they affirmed their feeling.

Building was booming in the hills. The county was running the show under Chino Hills manager Steve Kimbrough. The county planning department was in charge of development. The school district opened two “instant” schools, Butterfield Ranch and Rolling Ridge elementaries, both in temporary quarters until their permanent buildings could be built. Builders sued the school district over building fees to pay for schools. The district hired high powered attorneys and won their case in court.

The school board was looking for a replacement for Supt. Larry Lucas, who resigned suddenly, and hired prominent educator Leland Newcomer to find one. He said it would take four months, and it did. The board hired Artesia’s superintendent Stephan Goldstone, who stayed around for six years and did a commendable job.

Meanwhile, the school employees union, angry over some high placed staff shifts, threatened to recall three board members. Like most recall threats, it proved to be hot air.

The school food service department was having its own problems, having to drop apples, an important health food product, from lunches because of a national scare over the use of Alar, a spray used to enhance apple growth that had been linked with cancer.

One day a class at Howard Cattle School listened to a video talk by just-elected President Bush, but no one made a fuss about it. He was kicking off a drug abuse program, and encouraged the students to write him.

County supervisors, under the urging of Supervisor Larry Walker of Chino, had extended the agricultural preserve east of Euclid and south of Riverside to 1997 to protect the land from developers, while Chino and Ontario were maneuvering to include it in their zones of influence. Dairymen, thinking they would get a better and faster deal from Ontario, formed the short-lived El Prado Chamber of Commerce to push the issue, but the Local Agency Formation Commission wouldn’t go along. It told the two cities to get together on future boundaries. The preserve was ultimately split between the two cities at Merrill Avenue. Chino went ahead and allowed the Preserve to develop. Ontario dairymen are still waiting for developers to buy their land, although some have benefitted from cash deposits that were forfeited to them as the economy soured.

Meanwhile, to the east, the I15 freeway opened between the 60 to the 91 freeways, opening the west Riverside County area including Norco and Eastvale to new development.
Out to the west again, commercial development was underway at Pipeline and Carbon Canyon Rd. (now Chino Hills Parkway). Plans for a new St. Jude’s Hospital medical center on the northeast corner were announced, and a Builder’s Emporium was being built on the southeast corner.

Voters approved county Measure I, a half-cent sales tax for streets and highways. Top priority was given the building of the 71 Freeway.

An out of court settlement over opening Grand Avenue to traffic through Diamond Bar meant the fence would come down the following year.

In the city of Chino, under a redevelopment program, new industry was making its mark. Appreciation in the value of industrial land and buildings was among the highest in the county.
Fred Aguiar was mayor, Richard Rowe city manager. Police chief was Jim Anthony.
After the major earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area which gave pause to the World Series, damaged the Bay Bridge and crushed cars on a stretch of Oakland freeway, two community meetings were held in Chino on earthquake preparedness. Time for another?
Anniversary notes:

Ground was broken for the Chino Hills Lutheran Church.
The Chino Valley Community Chorus was established by the Community Center Corporation.
A contract was awarded for the completion of Chino Hills parkway from Grand Avenue to Phillips Ranch Road.
Social notes:

Marty and Lois Echito were honored as the most romantic couple of the year at the Community Center Corporation’s annual Sweetheart Ball. The Echitos, high school sweethearts and now residents of the Gardens at Hillsborough senior living facility in Chino, will celebrate their 72nd anniversary this November 20.

And Supervisor Walker, one of the community’s most eligible bachelors, married Carri Estes in August. They now have three strapping teenagers to help them celebrate their 20th.

Copyright 2009 - Champion Newspapers - Published October 24, 2009

Ex-president going strong

William Jefferson Blythe III was a post-war baby. Born Aug. 19, 1946 in Arkansas. This may seem like an obscure piece of trivia, except that we now know him as the youngest living ex-president of the United States. His father was killed in an auto accident three months before he was born, and he got his present name from his adopted step-father, Roger Clinton. His family, friends and millions of Americans know him as Bill.

The 42nd president of the United States was only 46 when he took office. Only Theodore Roosevelt and John Kennedy were younger. He was 54 when he stepped down as the only two-term Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt.

I’ll have to admit, I didn’t think that much of him and his boyish mien, probably because he was a Democrat and my lifetime way of thinking was geared the other way.

Bill Clinton loves to boast, and not without good reason in today’s economy, that during his administration (1993-2001) the United States had the longest economic expansion in its history, during which more than 22 million jobs were created, there were low levels of unemployment, poverty and crime and the highest home ownership and college enrollment rate in history. During this period the nation went from record deficits to record surpluses.

Considering how long it took historians to appreciate Harry Truman, it may be awhile before the nation gets a balanced look at Mr. Clinton’s achievements. Certainly Mr. Truman didn’t have a reputation shaded by philandering, impeachment, massive prison pardons, and questionable political and former business practices (some unproven) that the fair-haired former governor of Arkansas carries as baggage. Nor did he have Mr. Clinton’s drive, philanthropy and international prestige. Right now, all this poses a dilemma for those seeking an objective analysis of this very bright, somewhat personally impulsive 63-year-old ex-president who is still very active on the world scene.

The reason for this column was a distinguished speaker program I heard in Pasadena, which filled the 3,000-seat civic auditorium. Giving talks to such groups is the way former presidents augment their retirement pay. Mr. Clinton was also in the area to promote the 2010 governor campaign of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at a $5,000 a seat affair.
Mr. Clinton’s talk was enriching for me. He didn’t say much that was new, but he put today’s and tomorrow’s world in perspective. Since I’m getting tired of hearing how we ought to go back to yesterday, this was refreshing.

We’ve all heard about “globalization,” to describe what’s been happening to our economy. Bill Clinton says that is yesterday’s concept. Now and into the future we need to think about “interdependence,” because that’s the state the world. His objective was to provide a framework for us to organize what is happening all over. “People need to know the fundamental nature of the 21st century,” he said.

Why interdependence, which seems pretty abstract at first blush?
Because people travel more, have the Internet, and we have had a financial crisis which spread rapidly, like swine flu.

He described three areas of vulnerability facing our growingly interdependent world: terrorism, disease and economic collapse, citing this past decade’s record for all three, which has been rather chilling.

So what can people do?

His answer—we have to create a world with more partners than enemies, and seek win-win solutions. Sounds like the reasoning of our audacious-thinking incumbent president, which has produced skepticism among his detractors.

Besides politicking, and undergoing heart surgery in 2004, what’s Mr. Clinton been doing?
He is founder and motivating participant in the William J. Clinton Foundation, which seeks to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenge of global interdependence.

He has created an initiative for helping developing countries handle HIV/AIDS.
He is very involved in the climate change and global warming crusade.

He’s been working in Rwanda and Haiti to help turn those two small, over-populated and impoverished nations around.

He personally rescued, with tricky diplomacy, two journalists from North Korea.

He seems to be staying out of the path of the official work of his wife, the secretary of state, but his credentials and goals have helped open doors throughout the world.

After the program, I wondered what Bill Clinton’s legacy will be for subsequent generations. He still has many good years to enlarge upon it.

Copyright 2009 - Champion Newspapers - Published October 16, 2009