STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Samuel B. Nelson, state director of public works, has announced the awarding of contracts for the renovation of existing and for the construction of new state highway facilities in Imperial County.
A contract of $5,986,500 was awarded to the Matich Constructors and the W.F. Maxwell Co. & V.R. Dennis Construction Co., all of Colton and a joint venture, for construction of about 19 miles of Interstate 8 Freeway.
This project is on new alignment between 1.3 miles east of the East Highline Canal (about 8 miles east of Holtville) and 8.5 miles east of Route 98. The highway will be four lanes wide but constructed so that later it can be broadened to six lanes.
An interchange with Route 98 will be constructed, and over-crossings will be provided at Experimental Farm No. 2 and at Gordon’s Well. Also, the All-American Canal will be spanned by bridges.
40 years ago
Resurrection of a fulltime narcotics task force in Imperial County may have more support than practicality due to the recent passage of state Proposition 13.
While all major law enforcement departments in the county agree that such a force would be a boon in dealing with the ever-increasing narcotics problem, few feel they can justify the expense to the governing bodies that control city and county purse strings.
Resurrection of the task force has been suggested by the state Department of Justice in the wake of Proposition 13 and its expected impact on DOJ funding of narcotic-buying programs.
30 years ago
There will be only one game tonight in the District 22 Championship Tournament.
The Brawley Cardinals will play the Calexico Rotary team in Calipatria while the rest of the tournament survivors will sit the night out, waiting for the tournament to get back in the proper rotation. A flooded field early in the week forced one game to be delayed while the rest of the tournament field played on. Tonight’s game will make things even.
The Sunbeam League Cubs replaced the El Centro Padres in Wednesday’s game against Calexico when El Centro was ruled to have two illegal players on its roster. The players in question live in the Sunbeam district, according to District Administrator Paul Hoffman. Hoffman made the decisional announcement late Wednesday afternoon after a meeting between the two sides at the Airport Conference Room in Imperial.
20 years ago
Documents never intended for public viewing strongly suggest the San Diego County Water Authority in 1995 considered a complex plan promoted by Western Farms to transfer a portion of Imperial Irrigation District’s “present perfected rights” to Colorado River water to San Diego and up to 500,000 acre-feet of water generated by fallowing each year in perpetuity.
The documents lay out a two-part plan in which SDCWA would buy an “equity position” in Western Farms’ land holdings in the Valley and upon those positions “closing,” Western Farms — wholly owned by the Bass family of Forth Worth, Texas — would then lay fallow their thousands of acres and transfer the water to the authority. The documents say other Valley farmers agreed to do the same.