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January 21
1914 - Signal newspaper owner-editor Scott Newhall born in San Francisco [story]
Scott Newhall


Dee Dee Jacobson will hang up her hat as a Santa Clarita planning commissioner this summer.

The current chair of the commission, Jacobson didn’t reapply for the post after “her” City Council member, Laurie Ender, was defeated at the polls in April.

The full City Council appoints the members of the various city commissions and committees, but by tradition, each council member nominates someone for membership and the rest of the council typically gives its assent.

Jacobson was Ender’s appointee, for lack of a more accurate term, on the Planning Commission.

Matt Halliday was Ender’s parks commissioner, and he, too, opted to retire.

Contrarily, Ender’s Arts Commissioner – J. Eric Schmidt – is hoping the City Council, sans Ender, will see fit to reappoint him.

And finally, Ender’s appointee to the city’s Open Space Financial Accountability Panel – Canyon Country activist Alan Ferdman – would like the council to move him up either to the Planning Commission or the Parks Commission.

A pair of four-year seats are open on each of the city’s four commissions and committees. The application period closed Friday.

The seats are those that “belong” to Councilman Bob Kellar, who won reelection in April, and to Councilman TimBen Boydston, who replaced Ender.

Kellar’s planning commissioner – Charles Heffernan, appointed just this year to fill Bill Kennedy’s unexpired term when the latter retired and moved away – would like to serve a full, four-year term.

Onetime Planning Commissioner Diane Trautman hopes to make a comeback. In addition to Trautman and Ferdman, the applicants for Planning Commission are Michael Cruz, a paralegal in the L.A. City Attorney’s office; Paul De La Cerda, a Saugus school board member; and Edward F. Hill, president of a Glendale-based geotechnical engineering firm. Hill had applied for the open position Heffernan ultimately filled.

City Parks Commissioner Duane Harte – Kellar’s appointee – wants another shot. To fill Halliday’s seat, the nominees are Ferdman and Cruz as well as John J. O’Connell, a marketing consultant who serves on a YMCA youth sports board; Doug Spicher, product manager for YP, which is AT&T’s interactive digital Yellow Pages; and Bonnie L. Stauch, owner of Homeowners Referral Network.

Both John Dow, Kellar’s appointee, and Schmidt are seeking new terms on the Arts Commission. Local photographer Gary Choppe and retired Realtor Valerie Thomas have applied for a post, as well.

Spencer Leafdale of the LAPD is Kellar’s appointee to the Open Space oversight panel and wants to stay there. Three other people are vying for Boydston’s attention: Cruz; Jim Farley, a Southern California Gas supervisor and a frequent critic of the city’s special district management and spending; and Susan Orloff, a director at Thomson Reuters property tax services and former senior manager with Deloitte & Touche.

Unlike the commissions, the council will need to make three appointments to the Open Space panel. Councilwoman Laurene Weste’s appointee, John Dortch, retired with two years left on his term.

The date for the appointments has not been scheduled, but they’re expected to come before the council takes its summer break in August.

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