KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Just over a year after Vasquez Canyon Road was destroyed by a slow-moving landslide, the road was officially opened Wednesday morning by city officials in a ribbon cutting ceremony.
Sponsored Articles
Just over a year after Vasquez Canyon Road was destroyed by a slow-moving landslide, the road was officially opened Wednesday morning by city officials in a ribbon cutting ceremony.
“I want to thank everybody for being so patient,” said Kathryn Barger, supervisor-elect of the Fifth District for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. “It’s been a year, and there is no question that what happened behind us, with the failure of the slope, caused a great inconvenience for many.”
Get live news updates about Santa Clarita by following KHTS on Facebook and KHTS on TwitterLast November, a 400-foot section of the road was demolished after the landslide tore through the road and raised some portions of it 15 feet in the air. Geologists have since suspected that the landslide was due to a storm that occurred a few weeks prior.
Initial construction on the road began last June, and there has been no distinguishable movement or buckling of the road since last December, according to officials.
The road has been officially opened for travel just in time for residents to commute for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Do you have a news tip? Call us at (661) 298-1220, or drop us a line at [email protected].
Really? Just open the road. We pay our taxes for the purpose of things like road maintenance and construction. Why are we paying and congratulating politicians for having construction crews fix our roadways? If anything we should be acknowledging the construction company crew for doing a good job but that’s it. The vast majority of Americans do their jobs well and don’t have ribbon cutting ceremonies when the job is done. Get over yourselves!
EXCELLENT COMMENTARY! If our politicians &.city council would quit glad handing one another & be fiscally responsible with our city/county and state funds we’d have ongoing maintenance & upkeep in a timely manner! DO YOUR JOBS IN A TIMELY MANNER OR YOU’RE FIRED!
Good point!
Cris/Laura,
Chris K. /Laura
County citizen’s taxes don’t pay politicians, the taxes pay functionaries, the people who work for the various activities in, of, and for government, which include private companies the government hires. Why a ribbon cutting ceremony? It’s a fun and most efficient way of informing all of the folks interested in resuming their usage of Vasquez Canyon Road, while at the same time creating additional revenue for the folks putting on and arranging the ceremony. You can be sure, the information generated by the ceremony, pictures, written story narrations, radio and TV presentations, all generating payrolls for the persons involved are most welcome by all. The ceremony was also covered and posted on the Internet! I, along with you and Laura, most certainly wish to acknowledge the hard hats, heavy earth moving operators, in fact everybody associated in restoring the Vasquez passageway in that area of the county. Ironically the ceremony did naught Cris/Laura,
County citizen’s taxes don’t pay politicians, the taxes pay functionaries, the people who work for the various activities in, of, and for government, which include private companies the government hires. Why a ribbon cutting ceremony? It’s a fun and most efficient way of informing all of the folks interested in resuming their usage of Vasquez Canyon Road, while at the same time creating additional revenue for the folks putting on and arranging the ceremony. You can be sure, the information generated by the ceremony, pictures, written story narrations, radio and TV presentations, all generating payrolls for the persons involved are most welcome by all. The ceremony was also covered and posted on the Internet! I, along with you and Laura, most certainly wish to acknowledge the hard hats, heavy earth moving operators, in fact everybody associated in restoring the Vasquez passageway in that area of the county. Ironically the ceremony did naught for me. My brother who lives right off VCR informed me on the phone, I even missed the TV news coverage of the
ribbon cutting !for me. My brother who lives right off VCR informed me on the phone, I even missed the TV news coverage of the
ribbon cutting !
You’re missing the point, Conrad. It is a fact that politicians’ salaries are paid by tax dollars – politicians work in government offices and are paid by government accounts from whatever level of government in which they are employed. It is also a fact that tax dollars were appropriated from some government agency for that ceremony to pay for politicians’ and their assistants’ time spent organizing the event, notifying press, writing their speeches, trael to and from the event, and time spent at the event. Additional costs would include fuel for government-owned vehicles to get out there and back, the ribbon, scissors and podium. All told, that event cost several thousands of dollars to be sure, and while not a giant sum, it is frivolous and entirely unnecessary. A simple PR release would have been sufficient to get word out to papers, radio and TV outlets that the road has reopened.
And how was the ribbon cutting ceremony fun? It wasn’t for me even though I contributed a fraction of my earnings to support it. It might have been fun for the politicians. They were getting to paid to tell themselves and each other what a great job they did, yet all they did was their job. It’s not a new road, a bridge, or technologically advanced. It’s a road that already existed – quite mundane, yet celebrated. Landslides frequently wipe out roads that get repaired and reopened without any fan fair.
I’ll reiterate the great words of another Chris K:
“The vast majority of Americans do their jobs well and don’t have ribbon cutting ceremonies when the job is done.”