Thread: save Los Angeles County Raceway - press release.

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Rodders appeal to save raceway
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Monday, June 25, 2007.
By BOB WILSON
Valley Press Staff writer -

PALMDALE - Plans to excavate millions of dollars worth of rock, sand and gravel from beneath the region's only drag strip drove about 100 hot rodders to race to the City Council for help Wednesday.
Since Palmdale does not control the quarry land where the Los Angeles County Raceway rests, the city's options are limited, Palmdale City Manager Steve Williams said during a meeting of the City Council.

The land at issue is owned by the Lane family of Quartz Hill. It has been leased to the Watsonville-based Granite Construction Co. and a portion of it - until January - was subleased to raceway operator Bernie Longjohn.

Under its lease, Granite holds the rights to the minerals on the Lane property, and the company extracts those minerals to make concrete, asphalt, gravel and other construction-related products.

In recent months, the company's quarrying work has begun eating away at the edges of the drag strip, which is on the south side of Avenue T near 60th Street East.

The mining could force the 43-year-old track to close by July 29, said Hyatt, one of 27 people who pleaded for intervention by the city.

"Something needs to be done now" to keep the track open, Hyatt said. "Not only do we have street racers killing themselves, but they are also killing other people's family members" to satisfy their need to race, he said.

"Not until it hits home do you realize how important this track is," Hyatt said.

Steve Bridge, Palmdale area manager for Granite Construction, said he kept Longjohn apprised of the company's plans and intentions before and after Longjohn's sublease expired at the beginning of the year.

For the past decade, Granite has been working around Longjohn's operation to keep the track open as long as possible, but the date for the track's closure is Longjohn's decision, Bridge said.

"We've been working in noncritical areas for the past couple of months," he said. "We told him we could probably maintain the racetrack itself for several months longer, but not the parking area. At that point, he may feel it's not practical" to remain open.

"Frankly, I think Bernie has other plans, and he will set the (closure) date himself, not Granite," Bridge said.

Employees at the drag strip said Longjohn was unavailable for an interview Friday. In May, Longjohn told the Valley Press he was considering purchasing a racetrack in Birmingham, Ala. and relocating within months.

"If I were to guess a date, I'd have to say we'll be done by the first of October," Longjohn said at the time.

"What we've been doing out there has been no secret," Bridge said Friday. "We've had numbers of meetings, and I've sent letters to Bernie over the last couple of years about what we're doing, so this is no surprise to anybody."

"I know it's not a surprise to Bernie. I don't know about (the drag strip's) users," he said.

One of those users, Littlerock resident Jeff Hillinger, is heading up a "Save LACR" committee. Hillinger told the council that LACR is a long-standing business with a rich history.

"This is … a landmark that cannot be retrieved once it is taken," Hillinger said.

Organized drag racing has grown since the 1950s and '60s into a sport that is second only to NASCAR in popularity, and LACR has been part of that growth, he said.

LACR "is known to racers and fans throughout the western United States and beyond," Hillinger said. "Statistics show that there's a huge influx of illegal, unorganized and unsafe street racing … because all of the (racing) tracks that we built in the '50s and '60s are now being demolished in the name of profit and progress."

The demolition of those tracks has made retaining the remaining tracks even more important in an effort to move racing off the streets, he said.

Between the beginning of March and the end of May, at least 14 people have died in Southern California as a result of illegal street racing, Hillinger said.

In May, two people were killed and three more were injured while watching illegal street racing at Avenue G and 45th Street West.

All five were hit by a man who was driving a pickup truck that was not involved in the racing, according to Valley Press records.

Other speakers told the council that closing the track would force more hot-rodders to turn to the streets, endangering themselves and others while reducing business revenue and burdening law enforcement.

Mayor Jim Ledford said Williams had met with representatives of Granite Construction in an effort to determine what Palmdale could do.

Since there was no formal decision on the matter to be considered or made by City Council members on Wednesday, nothing was put on the agenda for a vote, Ledford said.

Because nothing was on the agenda, state law barred formal action by the council, the mayor said.

If and when a raceway item does come before the council, "there are some things that we could do that we would have to think very long and hard about," Williams said.

"We could acquire the rights to the land through eminent domain, but that is something I don't think we really want to look at because of the probable cost," the city manager said.

"The gravel value underneath this thing has a lot more value than just a regular piece of land, and I mean a lot more value," he said. "And it's not just the gravel value: It's also the value that the gravel brings to other parts of (Granite's) business."

In addition, "there would be some (legal) findings that we would need to go through" to potentially justify an eminent-domain acquisition in accordance with state law before such a move could be recommended to the City Council, Williams said.

"Another option would be for Granite to just find another area to excavate and obtain gravel out of the goodness of its heart and just leave the (drag strip) area alone, but given the value (of the minerals) underneath the racetrack, that's unlikely, based on conversations that I have had with Granite," he said.

In the long run, "it's pretty clear that it's inevitable that, even if there weren't this gravel-pit issue going on right now, if you look at the history of the other drag strips that have closed, eventually the same thing is going to happen to this one" because of encroachment by housing development, he said.

Ledford suggested the best solution might be to relocate the track to vacant land east of Air Force Plant 42. The land, owned by Los Angeles World Airports, is planned for industrial development that would protect a drag strip from residential encroachment, Ledford said.

On Friday, Bridge said Granite has run out of places to excavate the Lane property except beneath the racetrack and beneath the company's own on-site equipment.

Because of the expense of relocating the company's equipment to a different quarry, it will be the last place to be mined, Bridge said.

"We're at a point now where we don't have any options" except to mine the land under the track, he said.

If the city had been notified about the forthcoming problem last year, before closure was imminent, finding a solution for keeping the track open this summer "would be a lot more fruitful," Williams said.

Because of the value of the minerals in the area, the city "would be better off relocating the track, because it would be more economical than paying for the aggregate," Bridge said

Wednesday June 20th
The Palmdale City Council Meeting

First and foremost I would like to thank “All The Supporters” that came to the City Council Meeting” it's because of you that we were heard and because of you that we “Will Fight On”, till the issue of the closing LACR is resolved! And to all our "Friends On MySpace" a special thanks for helping us get the word out, you are the "Best"!

Although the “Closing of LACR”, wasn't on the Council Agenda there were over a hundred people there to express their opposition to the closing of Los Angeles County Raceway. We were well represented by a wide cross section of the community. There were people in there teens and folks in their seventies, there were law enforcement (Sheriff and LAPD), school teachers, business people, kids, mom's and dad's, racers and race fans.

They all had different stories to tell regarding LACR through the years, but the one common theme was they don't want LACR to close and they don't want to put more illegal racing back on our city streets and the entire City Council agreed!

According to Mayor Jim Ledford, the city has been and will keep pursuing the matter, but it's up to “Granite Construction” to agree to a solution that would keep the track open in its present location until a new track can be built! It's the opinion of most of the supporters that were there last night that the “Good of the Community” is more important than the “Corporate Bottom Line”!

When City Manager Steve Williams, was asked by Mayor Ledford to put a price on what the property that the track is on, was worth, he replied that it was worth far more than the regular value of vacant land in the Antelope Valley because of the minerals that were under the property, when asked to give a pall park dollar amount, Mr. Williams said about “Twenty Million” and these were figures derived from talks with “Granite Construction” and as Councilman Mile Dispenza added the City Council would have to justify this type of expenditure, because these are tax payer dollars that we are talking about, so what it really boils down to, is “Granite Construction” the “Multi Billion Dollar” company willing to support the community that has already added “Millions Upon Millions” to their coffers or not!

In the opening statement by Jeffery Hillinger, he mentioned the City using the power of “Eminent Domain”, if you have picked a newspaper or watched the news of late you know that this has been used by cities and small towns across the country to accomplish all sorts of things by taking private property, to build “Shopping Centers” to “Housing Projects”, the spirit behind “Eminent Domain” is to sequester private property for use that is for the “Good of the Community” and what could be better for the community than having a place where racers and fans can go and at the same time make our city streets saver. This would certainly be a better use of the land that LACR is on than the mining operation of a “Multi Billion Dollar Corporation”!

This issue in “Not Going Away” and neither are We!

“Granite Construction”
Corporate Administration
585 West Beach Street
Watsonville, CA 95076
Phone: 831-724-1011
Fax: 831-722-9657
info@gcinc.com

State Officials:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Los Angeles Office
300 South Spring Street
Suite 16701
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Phone: 213-897-0322
Fax: 213-897-0319
E-mail governor@governor.ca.gov

Runner, George - State Senator
848 W Lancaster Blvd. Suite 101 Lancaster, CA 93534
(661) 729-6239
E-mail Form: Click Here!

Sharon Runner Assemblywomen 36th District
747 West Lancaster Boulevard
Lancaster, CA 93534
Phone: (661) 723-3368
Fax: (661) 723-6307
E-mail Assemblywoman.Runner@assembly.ca.gov

Los Angeles County Officials:
Zev Yaroslavsky - Chairman of the Board
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
213-974-3333
zev@bos.lacounty.gov

LA County Supervisor 5th District
Michael D Antonovich
1113 W. Ave M-4, Suite A
Palmdale, CA 93551
(661) 726-3600
Email Form Click Here!:

Palmdale City Officials:

James C. Ledford Jr., Mayor
jledford@cityofpalmdale.org

Mike Dispenza, Mayor Pro Tem
mdispenza@cityofpalmdale.org

Steven D. Hofbauer, Councilmember
shofbauer@cityofpalmdale.org

Stephen Knight, Councilmember
steveknight@cityofpalmdale.org

Tom Lackey, Councilmember
TomLackey@cityofpalmdale.org

Steve Williams, City Manager
swilliams@cityofpalmdale.org

Too bad edwards would not donate land, then open muroc again at the same time, its really sad that there closing the track, i grew up to the sounds of lacr, my grandparents had a house out there, and my uncle worked for the mine, although i grew up in lancaster, i was still close.

to read more about the current situation at LACR and ways of showing support for the Organizations helping LACR go to...

http://www.saveLACR.com

thanks..

the rev

Dont ya think we've had enough of all these track closings over the years. Why is it that everyone elses agenda is more important than ours? Dont ya think its time we started doing something like getting all the racers together to force the govt to declare some of these tracks Historical Sites? I mean come on, they do it for old houses, commercial buildings, parks, wildlife refuges, even Military Aircraft Crash scenes, Why not a drag strip or two? Palmdale, rally the troops, see what needs to be done, push push push.
Michael

what became of this

Hi...
Basically, moldy and the gang got alot of publicity and the strip was 'temporarily' saved..
The full story is over at
WWW.RATFINKPARTY.ORG


This yrs Annual Ratfink party WILL be the LAST event for LACR, and its gonna be big...