Council invocations and school district demise
Two items are worthy of note as Yorba Linda begins its 42nd year as a city Nov. 2:
--Easily the least controversial aspect of any City Council meeting is the invocation delivered at the start of each session by a representative from one of the city’s 31 church and religious institutions.
Invocation assignments are handled through the City Clerk’s office by veteran employee Jean Lee, who sets up a rotating schedule of volunteers from participating organizations, mails a confirmation two weeks before the date and follows up with a telephone call.
“We get a positive response from the churches,” Lee said, noting the assignment allows “new pastors to be introduced to the city through TV exposure.” Meetings are televised on Time Warner cable channel 3 and streamed live and archived on the city’s Web site.
Invocations are set for 6:30 p.m. at the first and third Tuesday meetings each month. The short prayers are sometimes delayed as council members return late from the closed-door sessions starting at 5:30 p.m.
Elder John Bickner of Yorba Linda Friends Church is scheduled for the Nov. 4 prayer, and Bishop Charles Flake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Nov. 18.
“We ask that the prayer not be sectarian or include an appeal to a particular religious figure or deity,” City Clerk Kathie Mendoza notes in the letter sent to all participants.
--Twenty years ago next week, voters in the 77-year-old Yorba Linda elementary school district approved annexation to the then 55-year-old Placentia Unified School District 4,163 to 3,310 with an 82 percent turnout.
Actual transfer of assets, including Linda Vista, Mabel Paine and Rose Drive elementary schools, Yorba Linda Middle School and the education center at Yorba Linda Boulevard and Casa Loma Avenue, took place in 1989.
Ninth through 12th grade students continued at Troy High School until 1993, when the Placentia and Fullerton Union High School districts changed boundaries. Yorba Linda had joined the Fullerton district 79 years earlier.
When disbanded, the Yorba Linda district had 10,118 registered voters—9,651 in west and central Yorba Linda, 254 in east Placentia, 159 in southeast Brea and 54 in county territory.
The Placentia district unified in 1933, when four small-school elementary districts, one with east Yorba Linda land, left Fullerton Union to open Valencia High School. Voters approved the merger 587 to 333, but two 1934 bonds failed to win two-thirds majorities.
The small, often cash-strapped Commonwealth, Placentia, Richfield and Yorba (near Orange) districts now are remembered as place names on north Orange County maps.
--Easily the least controversial aspect of any City Council meeting is the invocation delivered at the start of each session by a representative from one of the city’s 31 church and religious institutions.
Invocation assignments are handled through the City Clerk’s office by veteran employee Jean Lee, who sets up a rotating schedule of volunteers from participating organizations, mails a confirmation two weeks before the date and follows up with a telephone call.
“We get a positive response from the churches,” Lee said, noting the assignment allows “new pastors to be introduced to the city through TV exposure.” Meetings are televised on Time Warner cable channel 3 and streamed live and archived on the city’s Web site.
Invocations are set for 6:30 p.m. at the first and third Tuesday meetings each month. The short prayers are sometimes delayed as council members return late from the closed-door sessions starting at 5:30 p.m.
Elder John Bickner of Yorba Linda Friends Church is scheduled for the Nov. 4 prayer, and Bishop Charles Flake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Nov. 18.
“We ask that the prayer not be sectarian or include an appeal to a particular religious figure or deity,” City Clerk Kathie Mendoza notes in the letter sent to all participants.
--Twenty years ago next week, voters in the 77-year-old Yorba Linda elementary school district approved annexation to the then 55-year-old Placentia Unified School District 4,163 to 3,310 with an 82 percent turnout.
Actual transfer of assets, including Linda Vista, Mabel Paine and Rose Drive elementary schools, Yorba Linda Middle School and the education center at Yorba Linda Boulevard and Casa Loma Avenue, took place in 1989.
Ninth through 12th grade students continued at Troy High School until 1993, when the Placentia and Fullerton Union High School districts changed boundaries. Yorba Linda had joined the Fullerton district 79 years earlier.
When disbanded, the Yorba Linda district had 10,118 registered voters—9,651 in west and central Yorba Linda, 254 in east Placentia, 159 in southeast Brea and 54 in county territory.
The Placentia district unified in 1933, when four small-school elementary districts, one with east Yorba Linda land, left Fullerton Union to open Valencia High School. Voters approved the merger 587 to 333, but two 1934 bonds failed to win two-thirds majorities.
The small, often cash-strapped Commonwealth, Placentia, Richfield and Yorba (near Orange) districts now are remembered as place names on north Orange County maps.
posted by Jim Drummond at 12:00 PM
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