STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

CALEXICO — Victor Barioni, administrator of the Imperial County Hospital in El Centro, said today he “had no knowledge” of a plan that calls for the county and Calexico governments to create a Calexico Hospital Building Authority.

County Administrator Roy Cooper and Supervisor Leslie Dowe endorsed the proposal Tuesday at a joint meeting of the Calexico City Hospital Board and the City Council.

Under the plan, the authority would be independent of both governments and have the power to float bonds for expanding the Calexico Hospital, according to Robert Bulot, of Stone and Youngberg, who was a guest speaker at the meeting at the De Anza Hotel.

“Revenue from hospital patients would meet the obligations of bonds,” Bulot said.

However, according to Bulot, if the authority could not meet the financial obligations, the taxpayers of Calexico and the county, would have no voice in the independent hospital authority, would have to dig deeply into their pockets and bail the authority out of any indebtedness to the bond holders.

40 years ago

Five Imperial Valley high schools have turned athletic attention to basketball and wrestling but football continues as king of the hill in Holtville.

The second round of the SCIF Playoffs takes place tonight, and the Holtville Vikings are in the Inland Conference finals. The Vikings host Ontario Christian at 7:30.

To say few fans expected the Vikings to be where they are looking ahead 10 weeks ago would be an understatement. Coach Don Jones has worked miracles with his Vikings.

Jones placed his success on the willingness and desire of the players. His staff simply showed the athletes what to do; it has been up to the Vikings to do it.

And do it is exactly what has happened. Holtville tied for the Chaparral League title and goes against the Ontario Christian club with an overall 6-3-1 record.

What the Vikings accomplish from here on is icing on the cake. Holtville reached the top of the mountain two weeks ago with a 13-9 victory at Needles.

Fans looking for a Holtville win over the Mustangs were few and far between. The Vikings did it and tied Imperial and Needles for a league championship (3-1).

20 years ago

After spending more than 15 winters in the Imperial Valley for health reasons, Swedish national Hans Gunnar Halen has been stripped of his visa and will be barred from re-entering the United States for five years after he leaves for his home country Dec. 18.

Suffering from chronic sinus and ear infections brought on by cold and damp weather, the 47-year-old Halen found his oasis in the arid deserts of the Imperial Valley in 1978.

For the last four years Halen had been staying in the United States year-round, save for the few summer months he spent in the dry and considerably cooler environs of central British Columbia, Canada.

Halen had been able to stay in United States by extending his six-month tourist visa. That worked fine until a few weeks ago.

“I had been here a few years and (the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service) had been giving me extensions,” Halen said. “My last extension was to run out Nov. 17. On Nov. 16 I went down to the (downtown) Calexico Port of Entry to ask if I could get another extension and they arrested me.

“They said I’d been staying here too long as a tourist. But they kept giving me the extensions.”

A few hours after his arrest Halen was taken to the INS detention facility in El Centro.

After a number of Valley residents who had befriended Halen over the years got on the telephone to INS officials and made some noise, Halen was transported back to the downtown Calexico port and reinterviewed.

Acting INS Area Port Director Johnny Martin said, “We requested that he be brought back down to the port so that someone could reinterview him.

“He spent a big portion of the day here, and it was explained that we would try to get him out (of the detention facility) the next day,” he said.

Martin added the only way Halen could get out of the detention facility is if it was medically necessary and Halen had an airplane ticket to Sweden in his possession.

A fax to the INS from Halen’s San Diego sinus specialist and an airplane ticket purchased by a friend freed him from the detention camp Nov. 25.

Martin said Halen still must leave this country by Dec. 18.