STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Education-under-canvas is succeeding so far on the Calipatria Union High School campus. But students and faculty are tensed for problems as the year heads into the heat.
The classes moved out into 10 leased 20-by-40foot, 8-foot-high tents, Feb. 21, one week after a bond election to finance new school buildings failed by a 27-vote margin to meet the mandatory two-thirds approval of the district’s 1,300 property-tax payers. Only 679 voted.
The 44-year-old high school building, and the old wing of the Fremont School and the Bonita School, were condemned last September as structurally unsound and failing to meet the earthquake-proof specifications of the state’s 1942 Field Act.
At that time the school board members were warned they would be held collectively and individually liable for failure to take corrective action. Two architectural firms advised it would be economically unfeasible to repair the condemned buildings, in which structural cracks were apparent and widening.
40 years ago
College of the Desert moved out to a 5-0 Desert Conference baseball record Saturday as the Roadrunners won a twin bill from the hosting Imperial Valley College Arabs.
Early-inning runs helped COD win the first game by a 6-1 score. The ‘Runners scored twice in the ninth inning of the second game for a 3-1 verdict.
Pete Milward and Scott Chariton hurled complete games for COD. Milward fanned five and gave up six hits. Chariton gave up five hits and whiffed six.
Coach Mark Meka used Mike Jones, Rusty Garcia and Paul Alexander in the first game. They surrendered eight hits and the Arabs were charged with six errors.
Paul Serna pitched a good game in the nine-inning clash but gave up two runs in the ninth. Eddie Gomez relieved the starter and got the final out.
30 years ago
The biggest challenge facing most 5-year-olds is starting kindergarten, and the furthest thing from their mind is planning for retirement, but now most 5-year-olds must have Social Security numbers, according to a new federal law.
The law, which took effect as part of the recent tax simplification legislation, requires taxpayers to list Social Security numbers for each dependent over the age of 5 who is claimed as a deduction on 1987 federal income tax returns.
George Martin, Imperial-Yuma counties district manager for the Social Security Administration, said the new requirement will help plug an estimated $9 billion hole in the present income tax system by enabling the Internal Revenue Service to ensure that children are claimed as dependents only once.
A recent study showed that about 60 percent of the parents who are eligible to claim children as deductions are divorced and filing separate income tax returns, Martin said. But in many cases both parents claim their children as dependents after a divorce, a violation of IRS regulations, he added.
20 years ago
The Buick is going to be wrecked.
Rather than a prediction about someone’s car, the revelation concerns the former restaurant and night spot at 202 N. Eighth St. that has been a city institution for some 20 years. Workers have been dismantling the wood and stucco structure for the last several weeks and a hungry-looking yellow end-loader sits poised in the parking lot awaiting the final demolition.
The building and lot have been bought by Brawley farmer and businessman Niaz Mohamed, sources say.
“Supposedly they’re going to put up a three-story office building with the first floor being parking,” said El Centro businessman Sam Mosher, who operated Sam’s Place nightclub there from 1992 until May 1996.