Today's rumors, tomorrow's headlines

Our little valley seems at times to be such a tranquil and civil place, but beneath the surface things are ready to bubble up into geysers of smoke and sensation. Expect headlines to flow before Halloween from the whispers and rustlings:

• The directors of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment (SCOPE) have so irritated the residents of Sand Canyon and Stevenson Ranch for interfering in their private affairs regarding bridges that said residents are petitioning the manufacturers of the mouthwash SCOPE to ask the Santa Clarita organization to stop suing everybody because they're giving the mouthwash a bad name.

• Councilwoman Jo Anne Darcy might run for another term. If she does, the campaign posters will depict her lovely Betty Grable legs with this election slogan below: "Jo Anne can still go the extra mile for you!" Councilwoman Jill Klajic has asked her friend, Skip Newhall, to take the picture. Skip's an authority on pretty legs.

• Tom Lee of Newhall Land and Farming called Keith Pritsker recently. Keith is a self-appointed nemesis of all projects proposed by the Land Company and is presently reviewing the 40-pound document the company issued as the EIR for Newhall Ranch. Tom offered to purchase Keith a new home in New Mexico and get him a job exploring lost canyons searching for the ghost of Che Guevara.

• City Manager George Caravalho finally came up with a workable definition of "eminent domain" that should please the merchant owners in downtown Newhall who fear what revitalization might do to them. "Eminent domain," George says, "is the process a government entity has a limited but absolute prerogative to consider using when groups and people, who must move at some point in the distant future, have not voluntarily agreed to do so by date certain when the City Council has defined 'voluntary' and established a long-term but indefinite schedule for relocation." George has asked Assistant City Manager Ken Pulskamp to meet with merchants to explain the city's position.

• Signal columnist John Boston promised to give Senator Dianne Feinstein my expensive black Stetson hat with a silver band around it if she would stop accepting campaign contributions from proponents of the Elsmere Dump. Congressman Buck McKeon, who is a Republican and whose brothers currently operate Howard and Phil's Western Wear store at no net profit, promised John that he could even throw in silver spurs and some free donkey riding lessons if the senator, who is a Democrat, began to promote his bill to prevent the Forest Service from turning Elsmere Canyon into the biggest, smelliest dump in the United States.

• Ron Winkler of the Newhall School District Board of Trustees stopped by Monday night to scold me for writing last Sunday's satirical column on a recent board meeting I attended. "It was too personal," says Ron, "and it was not entertaining. You've got to stop picking on Mike McGrath." I tried to explain that my role as a political and social columnist is to poke at, provoke, promote, confront, affront, vex, annoy, champion, defend, energize and otherwise tell stories and make clear. Some readers cheer while others sneer. And so. . . .

• The Lombardi Pumpkin Festival opens this weekend. We understand that Newhall School District bureaucrats, angered over the fact that parents from Stevenson Ranch School hold the district responsible for overcrowding the new school, have submitted an entry for the scarecrow contest that depicts the superintendent, Mike McGrath, dressed as Henry III holding up an ax over the neck of some cowboy wearing a black Stetson who looks like me. The caption reads: "This is how NSD deals with upstarts and rabble rousers."

• Leaders of the Valencia Summit have petitioned the Stevenson Ranch Town Council to annex into The Ranch. The Summiteers said they would do anything to secure approval from annexation. Alan Zada, Steve Tannehill and Loren Goetz even agreed to pay Mello-Roos taxes. Vice President of the Town Council, Rainette Lyon, said that "Chances of approving the petition appeared likely, if the Summiteers also agreed to eat Spam and tacos with their quiche, caviar and English tea."

• My wife Suzanne was with me last Saturday when I went into Sears to buy jeans. After I tried on ten pairs that didn't fit just right, she asked: "What's wrong, couldn't find a pair of 32s that you fit into? Why don't you admit you're a 34 and get out of denial?" I didn't buy any. I said I was going to lose some weight. Suzanne then observed: "Yep, when pigs fly! You'll first have to stop eating bacon and potato chips with your Cream of Wheat every morning."

Dr. Richard Rioux is a resident of Stevenson Ranch. His commentary appears on Sundays.
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