Sunday, March 18, 2007

Rialto Considers Farmers Market (Daily Bulletin 030707)

Rialto considers farmers market
Article Launched:03/07/2007 01:00:00 AM PST

RIALTO - City officials agree that the key to energizing downtown is getting shoppers on the streets, so they are talking with downtown business owners about holding a farmers market.
"It's a really nice project in a community," said Oscar de Leon, manager of the seven-year-old Claremont farmers market, which is held in that city's downtown on Sundays.

At the last Rialto downtown Business Improvement District Association meeting, Frank Roque, a representative of the Southland Farmers' Market Association, said he would like to locate a market at the corner of Rialto and Riverside avenues that would offer fresh products grown by local farmers. He also said the association would like to find a large building in the city to use as its home base.

The market, which would be similar to markets in Fontana, Palm Springs or Grand Central Market in Los Angeles, would probably not get off the ground until next year if approved.

- Jason Pesick, (909) 386-3861

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BS Ranch Perspective:

The last time that Rialto had a Farmers market the first few times they had huge crowds of people, and they started out a Success, but then the people that were there discovered that they could get the Produce and the other things that they were purchasing there for a whole lot less at Stator Bro's Market in the same city on their Shopping spree, and they didn't have to fight the crowds at the downtown Farmer's Market. We didn't have any fights or bad things happen. I think that out of one year and about two Wednesday's that followed the next season of Summer Fun, they cancelled it due to lack of participation and no money coming in. As soon as people was not making any money for produce sales they didn't come down for the Market at all. The only Farmers Market that was worth the time and effort was the Redlands Farmers Market, they had a very successful one.

BS Ranch

Wanted: New PD Digs (SB Sun 030907) Leaks, Mice Plaque Rialto Police HQ!!

LEAKS, MICE PLAGUE RIALTO POLICE HQ
Wanted: New PD digs
Jason Pesick, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun
Article Launched:03/09/2007 12:00:00 AM PST

RIALTO - The Police Department is a sight to behold. Boxes and old filing cabinets sit throughout the hallways. Records are kept in outdoor bunkers. Much of the staff works out of trailers. Mousetraps dot the dingy hallways.
"We've seriously outgrown this facility," police Capt. Raul Martinez said on a tour of the station Thursday.

That sentiment, which seemed to be shared by everyone Martinez ran into as he walked the police grounds, is not surprising coming from members of the rank and file.

But now the City Council agrees - only a year and a half after it voted to disband the Police Department and contract with the Sheriff's Department, a decision it later reversed - it's time for a new building.

At Tuesday night's council meeting, when Chief Mark Kling received approval for new vehicles, equipment and new paint and flooring for the current building, the council overwhelmingly declared support for a new building.

Councilman Ed Scott, who was among those who had voted to eliminate the Police Department, said he wants the council to decide to build a new station this year - prompting a chorus of support for the idea.

The current station was built about 35 years ago, when Rialto was a much smaller city. In the next 25 years, the city is expected to grow by 65 percent, to about 165,000 residents.

Records Supervisor Glenda Montgomery said records employees have to keep files under their desks. She also pointed out a number of makeshift records-storage areas, including a packed closet and a storage bunker in the parking lot employees have to run back and forth to.

"We do that every day," she said.

Rooms that used to be closets now serve as offices.

Police Cpl. Steven Mastaler said that in the winter he needs to install a floor heater in his office.

"I like it cold, but sometimes it's just too cold," he said.

The building also has leaks. Noretta Barker, a law-enforcement technician working in dispatch, said that when the holding cells upstairs flood, the water leaks into the dispatch area in the basement.

The drab facility also makes recruitment a challenge, Martinez said, and the Police Department is hiring both sworn and non-sworn employees.

The city is planning to raise money for a police facility. A study from October estimates the city will need $15million for an expansion of the police station, said Chief Financial Officer June Overholt. Much of that money will come from increasing development-impact fees, she said.

At a recent community meeting at the Rialto Senior Center, Kling, who started as chief a little more than six months ago, said he found the police facilities to be subpar when he took the post.

"If you're going to expect a professional department, then, you know what? It starts at home."

Contact writer Jason Pesick at (909) 386-3861 or via e-mail at jason.pesick@sbsun.com.




















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BS Ranch Perspective:

The Police Department has been looking to be rebuilt since I started there back in the late 1980's. Only they were looking at a design the size of the Station that currently is similar to that of Fontana's Main Police Station. Back then Chief Ray Farmer had placed a Ballot on the voter's plate to look at, for a 1/2 cent tax, to be added to the utilities to pay for the construction of a new Police Facility at the current Location where the Police Station stands. The City Council at the time took a small amount of land from the Lumber Yard that is located just to the West of the Police Station, by way of Imminent Domain. The Police Department Quickly fenced that area off and made it into an Employee Parking lot, which is where the Employee's Park today. The Driveway Apron that is located where the entrance to the West lot or the Rear of the Current Station was to be the entrance to the Underground Parking for the Police Units, and they were going to be able to place them all down there. the Prisoner's were all going to be loaded and unloaded into the station from a Secure Sally port, that would prevent escape or Lynching of a Prisoner, while you were taking them into the station from the scene of arrest or moving them from the station to transport them to Jail for booking.

The whole thing was going to be great, I mean Traffic would not have to be housed in a building down the street from the current station, and The Detectives would be on their own floor, but in the same building as the rest of the people that they work with! It would also house the C.A.U. Offices (Crime Analysis Unit's), along with purchasing and the Law Enforcement Tech.'s and Human Services, all in the same building, could you imagine that has not been that way since before 1987. It would be great and Rialto Police department would be more like a Police Station and not a Division of a major Police Agency.

BS Ranch!

Pedestrian Alert in Rialto (SB Sun 031107)

Pedestrian alert in Rialto
Drivers blameless in two deaths
Jason Pesick, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun
Article Launched:03/11/2007 12:00:00 AM PST

RIALTO - Look both ways before crossing the street. Use crosswalks. And remember that cars have the right of way.
Sound like simple rules, but police say they bear repeating after two pedestrians were killed and another injured in the last two weeks.

"All three of them, the pedestrian was at fault," said Rialto police Sgt. Jim Kurkoske.

Police suggested to the City Council more time should be spent educating people about traffic safety, particularly school kids.

A 17-year-old high school student recently sustained moderate injuries when struck while crossing the street near the intersection of Rialto and Arrowhead avenues.

On March 2, a woman was hit crossing Foothill Boulevard near Willow Avenue. A few days earlier, on Feb. 27, a man was hit crossing Riverside Avenue near Etiwanda Avenue.

The two who died were both inebriated, Kurkoske said.

It's not a crime for a driver to hit a pedestrian if the driver is not at fault, Kurkoske said. But because the driver who hit the pedestrian near the intersection of Foothill and Willow drove away, he or she has committed a felony.

The driver was in a red, 1980s-style hatchback that might be an Audi, Kurkoske said. Anyone with information should call Officer Ron Russo at (909) 421-7200.

The two pedestrians who have been killed were the only pedestrian deaths this year. Last year, four died, Kurkoske said.

At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Councilman Ed Scott asked Police Chief Mark Kling about what could be done to limit dangers.

"It's simple, and it's community education," Kling answered.

Kurkoske said pedestrians have to remember to enter the road legally, use crosswalks and keep in mind that cars otherwise have the right of way.

Avoiding being hit by traffic starts with parents teaching their children traffic safety and telling them not to play in the streets, he said.
















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BS Ranch Perspective:

Those Vehicle Vs. Pedestrian Accidents are bad to work. There are many bits and pieces of ground meat that is left on the pavement and it is not a great thing to work. There is some kind of thought that the Ped. Always has the right of way in the street which is wrong. The Car more times then not has the Right of way, and the Ped. Doesn't The exceptions are when there is a Cross Walk that is clearly marked with two marked lines and the Ped is walking within the two marked lines. The second is when you are walking against a Green Signal and a person Runs a red Light and strikes the Pedestrian as they are crossing against a green. Then the Car or Driver is in violation of 22350(a). failure to stop behind the limit line against the red signal.

BS Ranch

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Crews Into the Final Stretch Paving the Way for Freeway (SB Sun 092106)

Crews into the final stretch
Paving the way for freeway
Andrew Silva, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun
Article Launched:09/21/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT

RIALTO - In the past few days, a gently curving ribbon of white concrete has appeared in the wide dirt trench that will cradle the new Interstate 210 extension.

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Photo Gallery: 210 freeway expansion

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With paving now under way for the final seven-mile stretch of the long-awaited freeway, the project has entered the home stretch, with promises of relief to frazzled commuters and an economic boon to the working-class communities in its path.

About 10 feet above the evolving roadway, Shane Morales leaned on a rail at the top of a crawling steel structure resembling something out of a "Star Wars" movie, as he casually piloted the Gomarco GP-4000 paving machine.

"It pretty much runs itself," the 35-year-old Riverside resident said over the whine of the 475-horsepower diesel engine just behind him.
Giant dump trucks dropped 22 cubic yards of fresh concrete at a time in front of the machine as it crept steadily along at about 15 feet per minute.
With each load, the skip-loader driver confidently sped into the pile, running the bucket to within a few inches of the front of the paver as he spread the wet gray pile so the machine could draw the concrete in evenly.
Working from Pepper Avenue west to Ayala Drive and back, the 20 workmen have laid roughly three miles of the inside shoulder, carpool lane and fast lane in each direction.

At least they've done that for the first 6-inch-thick layer. The freeway lanes will be 18 inches thick when finished, with a 1-inch asphalt-concrete layer in the middle to reduce shocks and cracks, topped by the final 11-inch-thick concrete roadway.

When finished, the I-210 extension will connect to Highway 30 in San Bernardino, providing an uninterrupted run connecting Redlands, Pasadena and Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles, all while taking some of the heat off the teeth-gnashing mess on Interstate 10.
The freeway has already proven to be an economic boon to Upland, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana.

"The freeways have become like the rivers of old in attracting commerce," said Robb Steel, Rialto's development director.

Indeed, city officials decided to close the Rialto Municipal Airport to free up space for development that will be drawn to the new freeway.
"We want to capture our share of the regional commercial market," Steel said.

The city has already brought in two major distribution centers totaling 6 million square feet thanks to the new route.

And the airport site is envisioned as a high-quality mixed-use development, bringing residential, retail and commercial together in one walkable area.

Fontana has already seen the I-210 extension fulfill its promise as a road to riches.

The areas around the freeway have exploded with high-end development, luring businesses and middle- to upper-middle-income residents, the demographic long-coveted by the once-struggling city.
"The 210 has been the main artery pumping life into that (economic) heart," Fontana Mayor Mark Nuaimi said.

Fontana has seen houses selling for $700,000, a new auto mall, ambitious community parks in the works, and plans for a development called the Promenade, similar to Rancho Cucamonga's successful Victoria Gardens.
Professionals from the San Gabriel Valley have been able to move east to Fontana and buy nicer homes for less money without adding a ton of misery to their commutes, Nuaimi said.

Inland Empire economist John Husing sees the freeway as a chance to open entire areas of the San Bernardino Valley to economic development.
San Bernardino International Airport will be surrounded by interstates, he said, further attracting shipping and warehouse businesses. Not to mention the benefit to commuters and truckers of easing congestion on the chronically jammed I-10.

San Bernardino's long-impoverished Westside could be in for a major shift, he said.

"Muscoy is an area due for dramatic change," Husing said.
County Supervisor Josie Gonzales, who represents the area, agrees.
State Street could become a major commercial corridor, linking the Cal State San Bernardino area with Muscoy, she said.

She approved spending $300,000 to study possible improvements to State Street, including widening, curbs and gutters, and maybe street lights if residents want them.

"That's a brand-new business frontier that wouldn't be there without the freeway," she said.

Of course, there are still some bridges to be finished and plenty of work to be done before the first cars drive on the last stretch of the freeway extension late next year.

But the start of the final phase of paving "is a milestone for us," said Cheryl Donahue, spokeswoman for San Bernardino Associated Governments, which is building the freeway.

Back on the paving machine, foreman Kim Vanvolkinburg of San Diego-based Coffman Specialties praised the tight choreography of his crew as they laid a 37-foot-wide layer of concrete in a single pass.
Giant rotating screws, called augers, in front of the machine distribute the concrete as it's drawn under the paver, where vibrating mechanisms make sure the material is even.

Big steel plates leave behind an incredibly even surface, while finishers trailing behind run trowels on long poles over the concrete to precisely smooth out the base layer.

On a pleasantly warm afternoon, with the great machine vibrating beneath his feet, Vanvolkinburg looks around, smiles broadly, and says above the noise: "I love it!"

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BS Ranch Perspective:

Well the final stretch is in the paper, but that doesn't mean that it will be open any time soon, they tease with the best of them with that comment! The time that they were going to open that last stretch of the I-15 through Norco, it took them a great deal of time, each time they had several reports in the news paper that said that it was going to be any day now, and it could have opened any time, but they decided against it because they had a more then seven mile movie set that could more then make its money back in time and efforts for the over time that it took to pay the men to open the freeway in a timely manor. But, if you recall, which I do, this last stretch of freeway was supposed to have been opened already nine months ago, but it was delayed as a result of a fear that the proposition that pays for the whole mess was not going to pass in the voting booth, well it did, but before then they figured what a mistake they were making and decided to correct it by making a move to start construction back up, but that short time that they were closed down, caused almost a full nine months to a year to make them behind. weird huh? or is that just my "New Math" working against them, and the "old Math" working against them?? I get so confused about the new vs. the old?

BS Ranch