Stories from the past

50 years ago

Thomas Boley, supervisor, Imperial, has suggested a hospital district for the Southend of the Valley be formed and that local people be appointed to serve on the board.

He said Tuesday at a Board of Supervisors meeting that the county should take leadership in providing overall planning for health services and “we should have some control” over it.

Boley said if supervisors appoint “conservative people the people can respect, the district would be approved.”

He dismissed the Comprehensive Health Planning Board of Imperial and San Diego counties with the statement:

“People from San Diego can’t sell people here a drink of water in August.”

Boley noted the Northend two years ago voted for a hospital district (Pioneers Memorial) which encompassed territory from Riverside County to Keystone Road.

Tunney Williams, Brawley, pointed out that the district cannot be eliminated unless it is voted out by the people in the district.

Ray B. Langley, board chairman, said the board and the planning board must accept “reality. A hospital would be nice. But the people are not going to vote bonds for a $5 million or $6 million hospital at this time.”

Boley said the people of Holtville, Imperial and rural areas would not mind helping to support the hospitals of Calexico and El Centro.

It is not fair for city taxpayers to pay twice for hospital care, once on their tax bills and again when they use the facilities if others who use the hospitals do not contribute, Boyle said.

Boley, urged by Supervisor Clifton B. Hurley to make a “report” of the health and welfare committees study in reply to the Health Planning Board, said the report had been made.The county at this time does not plan to close the county hospital, he said.

Supervisors directed the county administrator, Roy Cooper, to send a formal report to the Health Faculties Planning Committee and to the Comprehensive Board. The report would go back to May, 1969, when the Planning Board first suggested the hospital be closed.

40 years ago

SALTON SEA — The drone of the pumps was all that broke the awful silence that settled over Salton Sea Beach Monday afternoon.

Groups of residents, mostly old-timers who love the sea enough to retire here, quietly watched the water creep into this West Shore community.

These people were tired. They had been up all night and most of the morning vainly trying to hold the water back. It broke through again and again.

Occasionally, a car would drive up. Then camera-toting tourists would pile out. Some snapped camera shutters, only to get back in their cars and silently drive away.

The same scene was being repeated in Bombay Beach, on the Eastern Shore.

“It’s not as bad as Elsinore, I guess,” said Larry Rear. Rear has lived in Salton Sea Beach since 1952.

Rear and his wife stood on Brawley Ave. as the water crept northward up Cal Avenue, threatening to enter the Beachcomber Bar and flood the Salton Sea Beach Marina, which is full of mobile homes.

To the South, the water surrounded the Twin Palms Motel and Mobile Home Park. “If the pumping works,” Rear explained, “maybe they can get the trailers out the back way. ”The Rears said their home, farther from the waterfront, is safe. “But if this goes under, we all will. We bought here for the recreation,” added Mrs. Rear. Helen’s Beach House, right at the water’s edge, is inundated by the water.

One local Realtor, with a waterfront sign that reads “Lots by the Sea,” need only change the “by to “in,” the crowd freely joked.

30 years ago

The stalled traffic outside the fairgrounds Friday was some indication of the popularity of the pop group Expose. Northbound Highway 86 was backed up almost all the way to Aten Road. I nside, eating corn dogs and drinking sodas as they stood in line, were Ashley Willett and five others in her group.

Willett, 22, her sister and brother-in-law, Ann and David Oatman, and a friend decided to come after hearing from her cousins that Expose was singing at the fair.

“I used to know one of the girls in the band,” Willett said. “What’s-her-name, the one from L.A.” Sandra Lara, 19, of Brawley, who was waiting in line for a place in the grandstands, said she had been anticipating Friday’s concert at the Mid-Winter Fair for some time. Lara said she has all Expose’s songs on cassette tapes at home.