STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

Brawley Justice Court Judge Henry Willingham became very suspicious when he stopped at the scene of a car wreck on Mountain Springs Grade last night.

The judge was right — James Thomas Polosky, 17, of Latrobe, Pa., had been driving a stolen car.

Judge Willingham explained this morning that he was returning from San Diego when he saw a wrecked sports car by the side of the road. The car apparently had rolled over after attempting to navigate one of Interstate 8’s dangerous curves too fast.

The driver of the car — who was slightly injured — was found sitting on a rock in a canyon about 200 feet from the wreck. He had a plastic clothing bag with him. When the youth was persuaded to climb back to the road, he told the judge that a friend had loaned him the car to drive back to Pennsylvania.

Judge Willingham drove to Miller’s Garage at the base of the grade and called for an ambulance and the California Highway Patrol. Judge Willingham told the CHP that he was very suspicious about the young man he had left in the company of a couple who had also stopped at the scene. Polosky, the judge thought, was trying to get away through the wild terrain after wrecking the car.

The CHP discovered that the car had been stolen.

Polosky was taken to El Centro Community Hospital for treatment and then placed in Juvenile Hall.

40 years ago

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An assistant secretary of Agriculture who resigned this week in protest of Carter Administration water policies, said the Interior Department’s attempt to enforce a 75-year-old limit on federally subsidized water poses “a grave threat” to farmers.

Robert Meyer, a farmer in California’s Imperial Valley, said he resigned in protest of announced administration plans to enforce a little-used 1902 law limiting farms to 160 acres per person if they receive water from federal dams.

Meyer spoke Thursday in Boise to the National Water Resources Association convention.

“It may be the law, but it is wrong, outdated and should be changed now,” Meyers said. An attempt to enforce the limit, when modern farming may require much larger operations to survive “poses a very grave threat to some of the most productive family farms in the nation...” Meyer said.

Meyer said the administration’s stand will damage the 400,000 acres in the Imperial Valley, and also threatens some 10 million acres of irrigated farmland in the West.

30 years ago

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for 10 a.m. Friday to dedicate an $8.9 million eight-mile section of Highway 86, which has been widened to a four-lane expressway.

The section runs from Kane Springs (just south of the intersection of highways 86 and 78) to just south of Salton City. The dedication ceremony will be held at the southern edge of the new expressway at Kane Springs.

Special guests expected to attend the ceremony include Rep. Al McCandless (R-37th), Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-37th) and Assemblyman Steve Clute (D-68th).

20 years ago

Imperial Irrigation District staff Tuesday recommended the district raise water rates $1 an acre-foot to offset a projected water department deficit.

The 8 percent rate hike to $13.50 an acre-foot would turn a projected $2.4 million deficit in 1998 into a surplus of $284,100.

The proposal drew almost no comment from IID directors, who will vote to approve next year’s budget in December. The public hearing did elicit some advice from Madeline Kuhn of El Centro.

“The district is going to counter to what is going on worldwide,” Kuhn said. “All businesses are downsizing. All businesses are becoming more efficient and competitive or they die.”