This
year marks a couple of interesting anniversaries that continue to
impact life in Yorba Linda – the 30th year since
residents voted to outlaw “safe and sane” fireworks and the 70th
year since native-son Richard Nixon was first elected to political
office.
The
fireworks ban resulted from a 1986 advisory vote, when residents
chose to prohibit pyrotechnic sales and use by a 67 percent majority,
8,811 to 4,297. The City Council enacted the ban weeks later.
Council
members had requested the Parks and Recreation Commission look into
the possibility of a city-initiated fireworks program, but the first
actual display was in 1989. Since then, the annual July 4
fireworks has become Yorba Linda's most-viewed event.
The
2016 display recently received approval with a $21,750 contract with
Pyro Spectaculars, responsible for last year's show that Parks and
Recreation Director Mike Kudron called “one of the best fireworks
displays on record in Yorba Linda” in a report to the council.
After
recent budget squeezes, council designated two revenue sources to
finance the event: $26,300 yearly rent from a Brush Canyon Park cell
tower and a $15,000 fee for using the vacant Imperial Highway/Yorba
Linda Boulevard lot to sell pumpkins and Christmas trees.
Add
cash from sponsorships, donations and sales at the event – they
generated $11,259 last year – and the projected $56,029 cost is
nearly met, with a small general fund outlay.
Nixon's
1946 election to Congress was a first step in a career that led to
his private library opening in 1990 and becoming a National Archives
facility in 2007. A major renovation is underway, with an
anticipated October completion.
Past
columns described Nixon's erroneous 1974 statement that oil was
discovered on his father's property – “He sold it before they
found oil on it” – and council's 1985 approval for condominiums
on the site.
Now,
the Rev. Canon John H. Taylor's “The Episconixonian” blog and a
recent phone interview revealed two more fascinating facts. Taylor, a
26-year Yorba Linda resident and former Nixon chief of staff and past
executive director of the Nixon Foundation and private library,
currently is vicar of St. John's Episcopal Church and School in
Rancho Santa Margarita.
His
2013 blog post “The Yorba Linda Plumbers” tells of the architect
including a working toilet in the refurbished birthplace: Nixon
“told me that the family had used an outhouse at first, though he
conceded indoor plumbing might have been installed by the time they
moved to Whittier....”
And
amazingly, Taylor recounts that architects “wanted to pick (the
house) up and turn it around” to face the library complex: “When
I pitched the architects' idea, he didn't say a word; he just stared
at me.”
The
entry notes Taylor's response to Nixon's stare: “'On the other
hand, Mr. President…we can leave it right where it is. I just
wanted to let you know what these guys were up to.'”