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Volume 30 Number 39
PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE PAID RSF, CA PERMIT 26
June 9 2011
Covenant residents to receive undergrounding survey BY KAREN BILLING STAFF WRITER The Rancho Santa Fe Association will soon send out its “Utility Undergrounding Interest Survey” to gather information about where interest in undergrounding is the greatest so the Association can target its efforts toward those neighborhoods first. RSF Association Board President Tom Lang said he thinks the survey is a great first step, a way to gauge the temperature of the community on the issue and move closer toward getting a price tag on how much undergrounding will cost individual property owners. There are a proposed 39 districts within the Covenant, with about 48 parcels in each. Property owners within the district have to come together to submit a petition to the Community Services District (CSD), which then jumpstarts an assessment engineers’ report and boundary map analysis. District residents then vote on the project, knowing how much they will be assessed. The assessment amounts are weighed by how much individual property owners will benefit and assessments can be paid up front or over time on a property tax bill. If the majority supports the project, then the CSD may vote to form the district. The survey also hopes to identify people interested in serving as district captains.
Opera coming to Rancho Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center June 11-12 BY KAREN BILLING STAFF WRITER The opera is coming to Rancho Santa Fe. Bach Collegium San Diego will stage Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” at R. Roger Rowe’s Performing Arts Center with two performances on Saturday, June 11, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 12, at 3 p.m. The opera will mark one of the PAC’s biggest performances since its opening, as well as Bach Collegium’s first staged show. Also making the opera unique is that it will feature a 16-piece orchestra playing the opera’s 17th century music on au-
thentic period instruments. “It’s unique in that we’re the only ensemble anywhere near here that performs on period instruments,” said Ruben Valenzuela, Bach Collegium founder and music director. “The opera is just one of the landmark operas … historically, it’s one of the most important baroque operas.” Founded in 2003, Bach Collegium specializes in renaissance and baroque works, with a focus on the vocal works of J.S. Bach. While other companies per-
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See OPERA, page 24
(Left) Maggie Bobileff, Karin Sporn and Iris Eckstein were among those who attended the Helen Woodward Animal Center’s 23rd annual Spring Fling fundraiser, “Broadway Tails,” on June 4. Guests at the black-tie event were transported to 42nd Street, the heart of Broadway, where they enjoyed fine wine and the delicacies from 20 of San Diego’s top restaurants. See page 20. (Right) First-grader Laura Rikkers was among the talented RSF School students who recently displayed their artwork at an Open House event. See page 16. Photos/Jon Clark
San Dieguito high school district rejects charges of religious discrimination BY MARSHA SUTTON SENIOR EDUCATION REPORTER Objections to activities at four schools in the San Dieguito Union High School District have been raised in separate communications to the district by Dean Broyles, president of the Western Center for Law & Policy in Escondido. “I’ve been contacted by a number of parents,” Broyles said. “We have four or five issues in the same district which is very extraordinary.” Torrey Pines High School, Carmel Valley Middle School, Earl Warren Middle School and Diegueno Middle School in Encinitas have all been named by Broyles, who complained that discrimi-
nation in various forms against Christian students was occurring at the middle schools and that the high school improperly permitted the publication of sexually explicit material in its student newspaper. In a four-page letter to Broyles dated May 20, SDUHSD superintendent Ken Noah responded to the charges, denying any wrong-doing by the district. In the Oct. 22, 2010 issue of the TPHS student newspaper The Falconer, a feature section titled “(SEX) posure” included suggestive photos and contained stories about birth control vs. abstinence and sexually transmitted diseases. It also included an informal, anonymous survey of 263
TPHS students, asking them if they knew anyone with an STD and if they or any student they knew used birth control. Broyles wrote in his letter to TPHS principal Brett Killeen that such sexually explicit material in the school’s newspaper “serves to undermine parental confidence in the school’s administration, who is supposed to serve in the role of parents (in locus parenti) while their children are in your care and trust.” Broyles cited the 1988 Supreme Court Hazelwood case to support his position that the school has the legal authority and responsibility to intervene when necessary to protect students from inappropriate
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material in school-sponsored publications. “The TPHS administration … had the complete authority to edit in part or completely deny the salacious ‘(SEX)posure’ article and photographs,” Broyles wrote. Noah, in his letter, said the ability to exercise prior restraint to censor student publications is limited, “unless the articles are obscene, libelous, or slanderous, or if the articles incite pupils to create a clear and present danger by breaking the law, violating school rules, or disrupting the orderly operation of the school.” “We do not believe the article in question rises to the standard under which See CHARGES, page 24
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