Foothills Sentry - November 2024

NEWS INSIDE A Monthly Community Newspaper NOVEMBER 2024 Letters Page 4 Canyon Beat Page 6 Service Directory Pages 11-13 Classifieds Page 13 Community Sports Page 14-15 The Best News In Town Since 1969 FOLLOW US at Foothills Sentry GATHER YE ROSEBUDS Firefighters pay tribute to their fallen fellows in annual solemn ceremony. See Memorial, page 7 ALL THAT GLITTERS High school queens and princesses don sparkling gowns and crowns to light up football fields. See Homecoming, page 10 THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Mayor of Orange offers insights and updates on the issues shaping the city today. See State of the City, page 5 RETRO ACTIVE The Silverado Country Fair is a step back in time. It has its own backstory, recounted in these pages for the ages. See Canyon Beat, page 6 THE BEES NEEDS Insect found on housing development site delays bulldozers in East Orange. See Endangered, page 8 See "Orange dumpsite" continued on page 2 Dr. David Hoyt at the podium. OUSD and OCCA agree to terminate Peralta site agreement By Tina Richards The Orange County Classical Academy (OCCA) and Orange Unified School District (OUSD) agreed to terminate an amended Facilities Use Agreement that would have allowed the char- ter school to establish a satellite campus on the district’s Peralta property. Under the original agreement, effective in February of this year, OCCA was “licensed” to use the property for high school class- rooms for three years, with exten- sions up to 25 years. While the agreement had all the earmarks of a lease, the then-four-person majority of the board of trust- ees termed it a “license.” A lease would have required five “yes” votes, but a license, only four. OCCA had planned to install portable structures to serve as classrooms for the fall semester, and beyond. The charter appar- ently did not know that the City of Orange, which has land-use authority over the property, would not allow the use of portables for more than one year. OCCA, as noted during its September board meeting, did not intend to build permanent structures on that site. Early ending OCCA submitted a Notice of Termination of the Facilities Use Agreement to OUSD on Aug. 28. The terms of the original agree- ment stipulated that early ter- mination would not be effective until June 30, 2025. OCCA, how- ever, asked that the agreement end sooner. State legislation requires school districts to provide facili- ties for charter schools or make in lieu payments. The license agree- ment absolved the district of that immediate responsibility. OUSD agreed to the early termination, with the provision that it will not have to make in lieu payments, or provide the charter with any facilities or furnishings for the 2024-25 school year. Those pay- ments of $30,000 annually, will, however, resume for 2025-26 and 2026-27. With the Peralta property back in play, the district is, accord- ing to the board’s closed session agenda, negotiating with Rancho Santiago Community College District over the sale or exchange of that parcel. Ongoing interest Meanwhile, Orange Lutheran High School has renewed its in- terest in the property. Back when the former board majority was championing the license agree- ment with OCCA, Orange Lu- theran (OLu) had submitted a proposal of its own, following nu- merous discussions with district staff. That October 2023 proposal was never revealed to the board, and trustees remained unaware of it until they received an email from OLu’s president inquiring about it in February. That propos- al was never discussed during an open meeting. Anumber of public speakers re- minded trustees of that OLu pro- posal at the Oct. 17 board meet- ing. They asked that a discussion of that proposal be agendized for the next board meeting. OPA surgeon receives Lifetime Achievement Award OPA’s own David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS was honored with the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the Clinical Congress for the American College of Surgeons (ACS) for his “extraordinary con- tributions over many years to the ACS.” Dr. Hoyt is only the sixth re- cipient of this prestigious award in the 100-year history of the College. His career has included numerous honors and milestones, as director of UCSD Division of Trauma, Burns and Critical Care; as a Professor of Surgery at UC, Irvine; Vice Dean at UCI School of Medicine; and Director of Training for Advanced Trauma Life Support. As ACS Executive Director, he advanced and initi- ated new quality programs and surgical education. He is past president of a number of medi- cal surgical and trauma boards, has been a visiting professor at 145 institutions and served as an editorial board member of eight journals. Dr. Hoyt and his wife Beth Rus- sell, president of Freedom Dogs and assistant to Lorrie Boldrick, DVM, have lived and been active in the community for years. Contaminants found on East Orange dumpsite By Tina Richards Soil samples collected at the construction waste dumpsite on Santiago Canyon Road in East Orange contain contaminants that may pose a threat to human health, according to a September letter sent to landowner Milan Capital by the Local Enforce- ment Agency (LEA), the Orange County arm of the state’s CalRe- cycle agency. The dumpsite, known by locals as Sully-Miller, is called the Rio Santiago Disposal Site by LEA. The 40-foot-tall mounds of debris that characterize the disposal site are the creation of Milan Capital that allowed illegal dumping of unrecorded construction waste on the property for years. LEA got wind of it only after fed-up neighbors alerted the agency and demanded that the dumping stop and remedial action be taken. LEA now has jurisdiction. It directed Milan to take boring samples throughout the site to determine if any contaminants are buried there. Milan hired Leighton and Associates to do the boring, analyze the samples and report to LEA. The work began in 2023. LEA stressed that the level of any contaminants found in the soil must be within state and fed- eral guidelines for passive use of the site, not for residential or commercial use. Those standards would be different, and require more stringent testing. Subterranean views The analysis was targeted to petroleum hydrocarbons, poly- cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic and semi-volatile organic compounds, heavy met- als, pesticides, herbicides, PCBs and asbestos, and was conducted according to EPA methodology. The samples were collected on a portion of the dumpsite la- beled Stockpile H. The analytical report sent to LEA suggested the soil was “generally clean,” “non- hazardous” and suitable for use as residential “fill,” either at that site, or elsewhere. Acknowledg- ing that not all of the soil samples were suitable for residential use, Leighton offered to conduct addi- tional targeted borings to identify areas of Stockpile H that did not meet applicable regulatory crite- ria. LEA disagreed with Leighton’s assessment. It advised Milan that it had discussed the soil analyses with the water board and CalRe- cycle, and determined that Stock- pile H could not be used for any fill operation on the site. It also stressed that soil from Stockpile H could not be used as fill for the potential residential develop- ments next to Mabury Ranch or on the horse arena lot located across Santiago Canyon Road. LEA’s review of the test results revealed that soil samples from all four borings did not meet Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) or EPA-rec- ommended screening levels for Orange Citizen of the Year Aaron Jacoby was presented with the award at the 2024 State of the City, Oct. 28.