The Signal from Santa Clarita, California • 11

Saturdoy, June 8, 1991 Newholl Signal Souqus Enterprise 11 Nation California Take an awekTire to a I LOOK WHAT WLP OFSWo-flGHTlNI? I PICKED UP it's Js I suirvey ff PIRATES.VAWNG RESCUES A SEA5JH FOR. eGiemees aid! 5fe fo. jNlNTcNnnl BOO SO ENTOY I HOW 00 You wtd? Turn mm I Yourself. For most California voters, John Seymour remains as mysterious a figure as he was on the day Gov. Pete Wilson plucked him from the Legislature and sent him to Washington as his successor in the U.S.

Senate. A Los Angeles Times poll last month found 78 percent of respondents saying they still didn't know enough about Seymour to form an opinion about him. This was similar to the findings of a survey last January shortly after Seymour was appointed. The poll also showed Seymour trailing the two Democrats now most frequently mentioned in speculation about next year's Senate campaign. Dianne Feinstein, last year's unsuccessful Democratic nominee for governor, held a lead over Seymour, while, state Controller Gray Davis -enjoyed a 22-point margin.

But, for the moment, all that probably "doesn't greatly concern Seymour and his campaign strategists. So far, things actually WASHINGTON A House subcommittee put in a useful day last month, just pondering the depths of man's ignorance of the world about us. The hearing didn't qualify as news for the evening TV, but the subject was of towering importance anyhow. Rep. James H.

Scheuer, chairman of the subcommittee that handles environmental issues, is a man with a mission. He wants to bring an element of order to the disorderly way in which information is now assembled on the animals, birds, fish, insects and other species that inhabit our planet. His idea is to coordinate a comprehensive inventory. We cannot know what we are losing, he observes, until we know what we have. It is unquestioned that our planet constantly loses subspecies.

The process has been going on for millennia, partly through natural selection, partly through the activities of man. By one estimate, 3,000 species became extinct in the United States alone -ft Letters to the editor Martin Smith Kilpatfick i TRUE PROFESSIONAL Editor. the corner to prime the pump to get it going. There were days when the wash had to be put off for lack of water, pressure or both. This was not in the rural areas of the valley this was downtown Newhall.

Thanks to the commitment of many, this is not what we experience today. My husband is part of that commitment; he has no other political ambitions, no ulterior motives, other than to see that the very best, most reliable source of water is available to all residents of the Santa Clarita Valley. There are those who would use the water agency as a tool to restrict growth; this is not the avenue to do that. My husband is aware of that, as are most of the other water agency members. Many would criticize the water agency's search for new water sources to ensure a stable water supply, saying it is growth-inducing.

I have only one thing to say to those critics: "Where would you (or our valley) be today if the individuals and families who arrived before the Valencia, Saugus and Canyon Country families' tracts were built or even dreamed of? Who are you to decide who the last 'new' resident to our community will be?" Aren't you glad that that attitude was not prevalent when you were searching for a new home? Planning is and has always been needed but that is why we have incorporated and have a City Council. That is the appropriate arena. While our family heritage in this valley began in 1936, we plan on it continuing through our sons and beyond. I am very proud, as I am sure our boys will be, of everything my husband and the water agency have accomplished. My personal thank you to the current and past members of this very important agency, and to the employees as well.

You have served well and have done a great job. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Debra DiPrimio 7 Wife of Robert DiPrimio Saugus In your "Faces in the Valley" feature profiling Mr. Gil Callowhill, I would like to offer another view of the remarks that several of the elected members of the Castaic Lake Water Agency who are water professionals are only on the board to promote or advance their careers. I don't begin to imply that I am speaking for each of them; however, in regards to my husband (the current president of the board) this statement couldn't be further from the truth.

At the time of his election in 1986 (and reelection in 1990), he ran for this office because of a deep commitment he felt toward our community. And contrary to what some would have you believe, all the board members live in, and are a part of, the community they serve. While he was not born here (he was raised and educated in Pennsylvania and was recruited in 1981 to work in California), he quickly became knowledgeable about our community. When we were married in 1984, he got more than a wife, he also married a family heritage deeply rooted in this valley. Our family first came here in 1936, when my Aunt Macy and Otis "Red" Andrews opened the 99 Oaks Cafe along old Highway 99.

My mother, Ethel Forinash, soon followed her sister to help work at the cafe and in 1945 met a young California Highway Patrol officer and they soon married. My father, Sgt. Marty Forinash, began his career at the Newhall station in 1942, where he retired in 1972 after 30 years serving this valley. After selling the 99 Oaks Cafe, Macy and Red Andrews together with Gracie and Bill Rolls then built the Saugus Cafe. It was opened in 1951 with my mother, Aunts Macy, Inez and Bea serving those first meals.

I grew up hearing stories about how the water pressure was so bad in town that before you could take a shower, someone had to go down to last year. These were plants, fish and other organisms that had been inventoried in the past. Presumably other thousands also disappeared, and some of them might have been worth holding onto. The most persuasive witness before Scheuer's subcommittee on May 23 was Patricia T. Bradt, principal research scientist at Lehigh University's Environmental Studies Center.

She is a biologist who has devoted the past 20 years to the study of benthic invertebrates. These she defines as "critters that live on the bottonrof lakes and streams." It was evident from her testimony that she loves her critters dearly. She said: "It is essential for evaluating the health of an aquatic system to know exactly how many different kinds of invertebrates are there. However, invertebrate identifications are difficult, in sore need of research, and taxonomic keys. are often unpublished or inaccessible.

I must send fingernail clams to Canada, midge larvae to Pittsburgh and mayflies to Illinois for identification confirmation." Scheuer's bill would establish a National Center for Biological Diversity. Its principal task would lie in cataloging the mountains of taxonomic data that now pile up helter-skelter in various government agencies and private institutions. As Bradt says, we know a great deal about "warm fuzzy vertebrates, beautiful birds and spectacular flowers. But of perhaps greater importance to ecosystem functioning are the little known beetles that bury dead carcasses; the praying mantis that bites off its mate's head; the hat-throwing fungus that toSses its spores a meter; the delicious mushrooms that grow only in symbiotic association with certain trees; the alga that spends winters in the gut of a dragonfly. "As a biologist I am continually surprised and delighted by the diversity of forms and functions that living organisms assume.

They have evolved to take advantage of a particular ecological niche, and we must preserve these niches lest we destroy inconspicuous species forever, before we know why they are on this planet." One such "inconspicuous species" is the Pacific yew, which has cropped up recently in the news. Long regarded as a trash tree by foresters, the yew now appears to yield through its bark a substance of potentially great value in the treatment of certain cancers. Scheuer wonders what else we are missing. seem to be going quite well for him, especially in the all-important matter of fund-raising. Seymour is not really trying hard now to make himself better known to voters.

His immediate problem is making sure that he'll have the huge sums of money he'll need to win next year's campaign. U.S. Senate campaigns are expensive everywhere, but they're especially so in California, where statewide election campaigning long ago degenerated into wars of costly television commercials. In explaining to a New York Times reporter why he's forced to expend most of his present energy on fund-raising, Seymour lamented: "The reality is, I'm going to have to spend a lot of money on television to tell people who I am and what I stand for. Just in the media market of Los Angeles, a 30-second sound bite costs you $30,000." (The notion that a 30-second television commercial does much to enlighten voters about a candidate or explain his or her views on complex issues tells much about the decline of political discourse in California.

Perhaps we shouldn't blame Seymour for simply trying to survive, in a system he didn't invent. If he remains in the Senate, though, he might try to improve the system by supporting legislation to make free television time available to candidates for the Senate and House but only in segments of no less than five or 10 minutes, not in those abominable 30-sccond commercials.) The -total cost of Seymour's 1992 election effoifwill be obscenely high, at least $15 million and probably closer to $20 million. If he doesn't get the dollars now, he won't have much opportunity to woo voters later, closer to the election, when they'll be paying more attention to 30-sccond political commercials. Seymour currently is working his way through 20 campaign fund-raisers within a four-week period. He's already had the Senate GOP minority leader, Robert Dole of Kansas, and the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Phil Gramm of Texas, appear in California to help him squeeze money from likely contributors.

His fund-raising prospects further brightened when the White House recently agreed to have President Bush travel to California in October or November to speak at a dinner in the senator's behalf. A single appearance by the president should produce another $1 million or so TIME FOR UNITY Editor: I would like to make a short comment on the opinion section in the Sunday, May 26, issue by Joe Franco tided "It's a mad, made, mad valley and it's only getting worse." In one paragraph Joe states, "Our elected leaders are entertaining hairdressers, our activists are at each other's throats, residents want to kill their trash collectors and our schools are in disarray from the administration to the athletics and right down to the pompon girls." "Have we gone completely mad?" Well Joe, you hit it right on the head. Let's think about what is being said here. It seems that every year we have some sort of controversy, and yet this year it seems that at halfway through the year we have double. Joealso brought up theTacHhat people who once stood as one are now locked in power plays, and because of this, our city has lost a chapter of the League of Women Voters, and that the irony of it all is that this failed group represented a starting point for something that the double-dealers are always playing lip service to working together.

And, it is a fact, as stated in Joe's editorial and many others, that there is the "Old Guard," and I might also add, the "New Guard," in our city, just as there is in every city. Perhaps the "Old Guard" feels that the "New Guard" is off base in their goals and many of the "Old Guard" do not want to lose hold of the ground status quo that they have enjoyed for years. And, perhaps likewise, the "New Guard" feels thatthe "Old Guard" is off base in many of their concepts and feel that is off base in many of their concepts and feel that it is time to let go of some of the ground and share in the future growth of our city. Because the fact does remain that unless we are to grow as a viable city of the future with unity and balance, we must all work together in harmony, because otherwise surely together we will fall. This event with the League of Women Voters is most symbolic of it.

Our groups: CARRING, SCRRP, Vision, civic "association," SCOPETThe' chambers of corn-merce, transportation committees, Memorial Committee, Elsmere Committee, Pride Committee, Planning Commission, and school board (did I miss any?) must start to work together. Finally, I propose one more group to form that all groups should join, called MUST, Making Unity Staying Together. Kenneth Dean Canyon Country Well, I wonder top, and I'm hound tosay that Scheuer's bill makes considerable sense The assistance Seymour is getting in fund-raising isn't the only favorable development for his campaign. He's also making the right kind of enemies. Rep.

William Dannemeyer of Fullcrton is attempting to rally the religious right and other ultraconservative elements in the state GOP behind his challenge of Seymour in next year's Republican senatorial primary. With Bush and Wilson behind him, Seymour doesn't have to worry much about Dannemeyer wresting the nomination from him. The Los Angeles Times poll offers Seymour reassurance on that score. The survey found that, while many GOP voters remain undecided, Seymour has an overwhelming lead 44 percent to 16 percent over Dannemeyer among those willing to state an early preference. Moreover, Seymour holds nearly a 2-to-l advantage 39 percent to 22 percent among Republicans who call themselves conservatives.

Editorial policy to me. Yet it was evident from the one-day hearing that biologists are of two minds. The I Sierra Club believes his bill should have been passed long ago. The National Audubon Society and the Humane Society see the measure as "an important and needed first "step." The Keystone Center regards better coordination among federal agencies as On the other hand, the Fish and Wildlife 1 Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Council on Environmental Quality and the National Forest Products Association all oppose the bill. They object that in Jie taxonomic table of bureaucracy, one nore subspecies would be created by Scheuer's proposed center.

Existing public igencies and private institutions are making steady progress. They don't need a new coordinating' committee. What they need is Ma 8 letter to: The Signal P.O. Box $01870 Santa Clarita, CA 91380-1870 Hand deliver to: 24000 Creekside Rd. FAX: (SOS) 254-8068.

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