STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
A Brawley man was arrested and booked on charges of reckless driving Sunday night after the car he was driving smashed into two parked vehicles in the 100 block of South Plaza according to Brawley police.
Robert H. Dominguez, apparently lost control of his car as he went around the Plaza, police said. His vehicle collided with legally parked cars owned by Warner Seed Co. and Ed C. Beechey, of Brawley. The Dominguez car sustained major damages to the front while the other two cars were moderately damaged.
40 years ago
Five people, including a 15-month-old baby girl that was badly sunburned, were rescued Thursday afternoon by Border Patrol and Park Ranger search units in the Borrego Desert area.
The units found Steven Farrer, 28, Ter willinger, nine miles from his abandoned pickup truck in Coyote Canyon. Briar O’Bryant, 23, and her daughter, Rosa, both of Ter willinger, along with two illegal aliens were rescued about four miles from the truck. The other two persons were identified as Juan Calderon, 25, and Lorenzo Cardenas, 21, both of Mexico.
Farrer was described by Border Patrol spokesman William Glenn as “delirious and exhausted” when found, while the others were “exhausted and in need of water and shade.”
None required hospitalization but it was advised that the infant receive immediate medical attention for her sunburn.
30 years ago
IMPERIAL — The Imperial Unified School District and the federal Environmental Protection Agency continue to bicker about action concerning the inspection and detection of samples of asbestos found in classrooms and school buildings.
The standoff between the government agency and the district began in February when an inspector from the San Francisco EPA office visited the district for a monitoring inspection and required a full inspection of the buildings for carcinogenic asbestos materials. Because the district was late in filing its own inspection report before government deadlines, the Environmental Protection Agency also had levied a fine of nearly $20,000 against the district. However, then Superintendent Donald Hopper said the fine could be whittled down to as little as $3,000 if full scale, follow-up inspections showed no signs of asbestos.
When it learned about the fine, the district asked attorney Frank Oswalt III, of Horton, Knox, Carter and Foote, to negotiate between the district and EPA officials about the issue. After two room-by-room inspections by Associated Safety Consultants, an outside firm hired by the district, traces of asbestos material were located in the science room in Imperial High School and in other buildings on the campus, said Hopper. The asbestos apparently was part of material sprayed onto steel beams in the room, he said.
20 years ago
Imperial Valley residents of Chinese descent interviewed Tuesday were happy and expressed a sense of closure after Britain’s handover of Hong Kong to the people of China. The transition Tuesday ended a 160-year period during which Britain governed the city. “This should have happened a long time ago. The British just took the land from us. Any concessions like that are only supposed to be for 99 years, but the British had Hong Kong for something like 160 years. I’m glad to see its’ over,” said Calexico resident Robert Lee, 55, who is from the Hupei Province in China.