Foothills Sentry Page 4 MARCH 2025 Circulation … 40,000 Published on the last Tuesday of each month and distributed to residences, businesses, libraries and civic centers. Printing by Advantage, Inc. 714-532-4406 Fax: 714-532-6755 foothillssentry.com 1107 E. Chapman Ave., #207 Orange, CA 92866 ©Foothills Sentry 2025 Publisher/Editor Anita Bennyhoff 1969-2013 Editor Tina Richards editor@foothillssentry.com Sports Editor Cliff Robbins sportseditor@att.net Graphic Designer Jef Maddock graphics@foothillssentry.com Advertising Sales Andie Mills advertising@foothillssentry.com 714-926-9299 Office Manager officemanager@foothillssentry.com "Parking" continued from page 1 "OUSD" continued from page 1 storefronts, enforces time-limited parking and provides long-term parking around the commercial periphery. The ordinance under consideration indicates that parking sessions would be paid for through a mobile payment system of pay stations placed throughout the area. Visitors would enter their license plate number, along with their payment. License plate numbers would be tracked by license plate readers used by parking enforcement officers. No free ride Paid parking within the Old Towne commercial core would be enforced Monday through Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The cost would be $1.25 per hour in city parking lots; $1.50 per hour on city streets; and $2 per hour in marked parking spaces around the Plaza. Paid parking will be supplemented with time limits of either two or three hours to encourage turnover. Revenue is expected to be $1.2 million per year. The commercial core is bounded by Maple Avenue to the north; Almond Avenue to the south; Lemon Street to the west; and Grand Street to the east. This area includes eight city parking lots. Free parking will remain on portions of Cypress Street, Center Street, Glassell Street, Maple Avenue, the Main Library, the Metrolink parking lot and the Lemon Street parking structure. Surrounding residential areas will be able to procure parking permits at no cost. Long-term parking permits in paid parking zones will be available on a discretionary basis for an administrative fee. Vendor selection, procurement, installation, programming and field integration is expected to take seven to nine months. Modena High reported that she had attended combo classes and felt shortchanged. Teachers must split their time between two grade levels and rely heavily on aides to ensure the work is getting done. “I didn’t feel like I was getting any attention,” she said. “Learning was harder.” Community input a must The board agreed that consolidation should be studied, but that it should be transparent and involve the community. “It’s going to be painful, and there will be political costs,” Christensen admitted. “Closing schools is a hard thing to do. It has to be deliberate and done for the right reasons. Some people won’t like it, and I get it.” “We are looking for positive outcomes over the next five, 10, 20 years,” Board President Kris Erickson said. “Difficult topics are our job.” In line with potential school consolidation is the long list of facilities improvements noted in the district’s Facilities Master Plan. Every elementary school needs modernization, but the budget is limited. Christensen recommended that the board reach a consensus on the first elementary schools to be modernized, in concert with consolidation. “We need a demographic study,” he suggested. “We also need to look at interdistrict enrollment. Are we bringing in students from other districts, or just other OUSD schools?” Trustee Andrea Yamasaki noted that the district had, some time ago, initiated an attract and retain program, and asked Christensen if it had worked. Without having that information before him, the superintendent suggested that it had helped, but the numbers needed to be compared with other county and state districts. That, he said, will be part of the study. Spread the load Christensen also recommended a management workload study. He noted that OUSD now has 114 management positions, up from 91 in 2014. The increase is due, in part, to state programs that provide funding, but with “strings attached.” The programs are good for students, but they require staff time to manage them and meet accountability requirements. And, he explained, the staff work continues after the funding is spent. “We’re still completing programmatic accountability requirements for COVID,” he said. Noting that nine programs will expire in the next five years, he stressed that managing these programs drives the need for employees who are not necessarily at school sites. Workloads are not adjusted appropriately. “I don’t know what the right number is,” he said. “We may be right on, but we need to look at it.” The suggestion that received the most support from board members, and deemed the easiest to satisfy, was standardized parent/teacher communications software. Closing the app gap Apparently, there is no single district-supported portal for parents and teachers to share inforFiredup Dear Editor: On January 28, I addressed the Orange City Council about the dangers of selling fireworks in the City of Orange. I don't believe many of the people in the city are aware of the dangers that we face in the East Orange communities. The disappointment of dealing with this council, and more to the point, our representative in District 6, John Gyllenhammer, is that he said nothing at all. I shouldn't have to remind him (again) that his first responsibility is to protect the citizens in his district. It was also apparent that councilmembers Denis Bilodeau and Jon Dumitru were more interested in debating how many more organizations could be included in the lottery for permits to sell fireworks. Bilodeau's only interest was in adding MORE to the lottery. Did this council learn NOTHING from the Palisades tragedy? I know that the city council put this to a citywide vote. However, when the city attorney was asked if a moratorium on the sale of fireworks could be implemented until researching the legality and safety of a measure would allow it to be overturned, our city attorney didn't waste a moment looking into this legitimate question. It took him about two seconds to reply that the only recourse was a referendum. The business of crashing headlong into the sale of fireworks continued from that moment, without any regard to the very real dangers that this presents. I offered the council the opportunity to set up a committee to develop an evacuation plan, as there currently is NO plan for the evacuation of people and animals in the City of Orange. The council just went ahead with its self-serving plans to add more organizations to the lottery. JohnReina Orange Park Acres Dear Editor: I read your article about fireworks for this 4th of July in Orange. We live between Chapman, Jamboree, Canyon View and Newport Blvd., very close to Peters Canyon. Every year before, during and after the 4th, someone who backs up to Canyon View fires illegal fireworks. They usually do it later in the night. We do not know who is doing this. I know this is a restricted area for fireworks that are now legal in Orange, but is there a way to notify the authorities to be on the lookout for this illegal activity. I know our neighborhood worries so much about fires in this area, and this behavior is so very risky. Thank you so much for your reporting. CarolAnn Orange Good fences Dear Editor: I am writing to express my concern about the alarming situation regarding the SullyMiller property, located adjacent to our community, The Reserve, on Santiago Canyon Road. This area has now become a site for criminal activities, including burglaries and illegal encampments, that are negatively impacting our neighborhood. As this property falls within the City of Orange, I urge city officials to take immediate action to secure and fence off the land to prevent further incidents. Recently, one of my neighbors experienced a break-in at their home. This robbery marked the sixth burglary in our area over the past five years, with all incidents linked to this property. It has become increasingly clear that criminals are using the SullyMiller property to access our backyards. A more robust fence at the base of the hill would serve as a critical deterrent. What is particularly troubling is that the burglars operated undetected for over two hours, ransacking my neighbor’s home, using makeshift tools such as barbells, kitchen knives, and even shower door handles to break into their wall safe. The aftermath left their home in complete disarray, much as my home was when I was robbed four years ago. Additionally, we have faced incidents of unauthorized individuals camping on the property, which has led to thefts, including another neighbor’s experience with poachers tapping into their electricity two years ago. In these cases, the Orange HEART unit successfully relocated individuals who had set up encampments near the creek on the property’s northeast corner. Unfortunately, access to this property remains shockingly easy for these individuals, with one even driving a minivan onto the site for their encampment. As concerned residents, we have taken various precautions to protect our homes, but we cannot do it alone. It is crucial for the safety and security of our community that this property is properly secured. Building a strong fence to enclose the Sully-Miller land would be an essential first step in preventing further criminal activities. MarkMoore Orange Wildlife losing Dear Editor: I run a website called Orange County Outdoors and I specialize in photographing and educating people about the wildlife we are fortunate to have here in Orange County, specifically mountain lions. I track a lot of the mountain lions here. I know their travels and where they go. I know which mountain lion is which. The Orange Heights development is going to have a major impact on the mountain lions traveling the outskirts of the Santa Ana Mountains. A mountain lion was hit and killed because of the fences put up around the development site. The mountain lions of OC are expected to be extinct in less than 50 years. If this project moves forward it's going to accelerate that to 20 or 30 years. The mountain lions will be gone. The people that move into these communities do not want animals around. They may likely put out rodenticide. Not only does that kill mice, it kills all the animals that eat the mice: the hawks, the owls, the foxes, the bobcats, the coyotes, mountain lions. This is going to impact animals for miles around. I’m here to give a voice to those without a voice. All the animals that are here that we just forget about because they can’t speak. Before developing the Orange Heights Project, I would ask that a thought and some consideration be given to those without a voice. Mark Girardeau Mission Viejo mation. Teachers have set them up on their own, resulting in multiple communications apps for a single student. Reporting that he had heard from a large number of parents regarding the app overload, Christensen recommended the district “take control of this” to improve functionality and security. It will cost money, he said, but we need to do it. Trustees Sierra Vane and Ana Page both reported that they were multi-app parents, with two or three different portals for a single student. “I have to look in five different places just to see what’s going on,” said Page, “and my students are still in elementary school.” There was board consensus that a standardized app be a priority, that parents and teachers already support the idea. “It’s a no-brainer,” Erickson summarized. Asked by Trustee Stephen Glass what these studies would look like, Christensen explained that they would be ongoing. “Staff won’t come back a year from now and say ‘this is it,’” he said. Regular reports would be brought to the board, detailing who participated, what they found, and assurances that the solutions would work Timing-wise, the communications app is first, workload studies a constant exercise, and school improvements identified with some urgency, as construction costs continue to rise. Any school consolidation should be determined by September 2026. Turtles and tortoises steal the show The Annual Turtle & Tortoise Show, sponsored by the Orange County Chapter of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club will be held, Saturday, May 3, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the First Christian Church of Orange, 1130 E. Walnut Avenue. Visitors may meet live turtles and tortoises, receive husbandry and adoption information, enjoy snacks, raffles and shop for turtle related goods. This fundraiser helps support the reptiles awaiting adoption. For information about the Orange County club chapter, see tortoise.org.
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