Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission

This article appeared in the AV Press, Saturday, August 8, 2009

By Daisy Ratzlaff
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER – Palmdale and Lancaster officials hope a newly-instated mediation program resolving neighborhood disputes will help foster greater communications between neighbors and relieve courts, code enforcement and sheriff’s department personnel of having to deal with issues pertaining to matters residents could otherwise solve themselves.

Darren Parker, president of the Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission, said residents who have complaints about their neighbors’ cars being parked on their front lawns or overgrown tree branches that grow into their yards now have an alternative option rather than notifying city or deputies to handle “the more civil rather than criminal matter.”

“This program is designed to help neighbors who are in dispute at no cost to them t solve their problem in order to build safer, better and stronger neighborhoods,” Parker said.

The mediation program, which runs under the Neighbor Dispute Resolution Program, was developed by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and the Antelope Vally Human Relations Commission as well as Lancaster and Palmdale city officials. It officially began operation Thursday and will allow residents to call a special hot line and ask for one of 20 mediators and four senior mediators to help resolve neighbor-to-neighbor problems, Parker said.

“we found out that one out of every three cases that the task force deals with may at some point have started as a neighborhood dispute,” he said. “We are happy that we have law enforcement with us, and it looks like it will take the work off their desks and put in the proper place, where the issues can be addressed on a one-on-one basis.”

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Tags: Conflict resolution, Darren Parker, Mediation, Neighbors, Task Force by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Sunday, July 12, 2009.

By ALEXA VAUGHN
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE – Members of the Antelope Valley branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, city officials and more than 50 Valley residents celebrated the organization’s 100th year Saturday morning with music, cake and local stories of racial equality’s progression.

At the Poncitlan Square event, organized by Antelope Valley NAACP Vice President Juan Blanco, was Hank Dixon from “The Originals” singing the group’s 1969 hit “Baby I’m For Real,” a performance of the play “Slave Girl” by Palmdale High School graduate Naomi Derensbourg-Toppin and black leaders past and present from across the Valley.

Among those reflecting on the role of the NAACP in the Antelope Valley since the local chapter was founded in the 1960s, was the branch’s founding president, Lois Patton.

When Patton’s husband, an inspector who worked for Lockheed, was transferred to Palmdale, Patton said it was nearly impossible to get a house within the area’s white residential communities.

“Instead they would lead you to the outskirts, and I mean out – out in Sun Village,” Patton said. “Our house had an acre of land with it, but we didn’t want all that. We didn’t want to be farmers.

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Tags: Community, Darren Parker, Housing Discrimination, Juan Blanco, Lois Patton, NAACP, Progress, Task Force by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Saturday, March 21, 2009.

By JULIE DRAKE
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER – About 300 middle and high school students and a handful of adults kept their attention focused on the elegant, bespectacled bald man with the slight gray beard and in the camel-colored suit standing before them Friday morning in the small gymnasium inside the physical education building at Eastside High School’s permanent campus.

The man was psychologist Dr. Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, the African-American high school students who volunteered to integrate the formerly all-white Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957.

Roberts, then a 15-year-old junior, and the eight other students attended Central High for one year. To avoid integration the following year, then-Gov. Orval Faubus ordered Little Rock’s public school system shut down. As a result, Roberts and his family moved to California.

The psychologist was the keynote speaker at Eastside High’s joint teen summit, which included Eastside junior and senior students as well as students from Piute and New Vista middle schools.

Roberts played a brief video history of the Little Rock Nine before he gave his speech and took questions from the audience afterward.

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Tags: Darren Parker, PEACE, SHARE, Task Force by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Monday, March 9, 2009.

By DAISY RATZLAFF
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE – A public forum is scheduled for today at Livingstone Cathedral of Worship to address recent escalating violence and inter-group conflict at Pete Knight High School.

The forum, which will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 37721 100th St. East, will include law enforcement officials, religious leaders, school officials, elected officials, community leaders as well as students and parents.

“This meeting is part of our community outreach,” said Darren Parker, leader of the Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission and a leader at Livingstone Cathedral of Worship.

Within the last week, Parker said there have been numerous physical conflicts after school and even reports of weapons on school grounds.

Both the task force and the Violence-Free Zone initiative at Knight High School are host of the Monday night meeting.

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Tags: Community, Darren Parker by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Friday, January 23, 2009.

By ALISHA SEMCHUCK
Valley Press Staff Writer
LANCASTER – During a ceremony dedicating commemorative benches at Antelope Valley College, representatives from The Boeing Co. gave the college foundation a $30,000 donation.

Of that money, $10,000 was earmarked for a scholarship fund that supports engineering students; $15,000 was meant for the campus Child Development Center; and $5,000 was dedicated to the college symphony and master chorale, according to Jeff Thoman and Barbra Greene of Boeing.

“We’re investing in the future of engineering to develop the critical skills needed for the aerospace industry,” said Thoman, a test manager at Boeing.

The $10,000 for scholarships came from company funds, he added. The remaining $20,000 came from the pockets of Boeing employees.

Greene, the community investor for Boeing, said funds for the Child Development Center will help refurbish the facility and purchase additional playground equipment, as well as buy educational materials for math and literacy programs.

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Tags: Antelope Valley College, Bob Forshay, Darren Parker, SOAR by admin
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TAKING THE OATH – From left, Timothy Wiley, Cassandra Harvey, Courtney Stallworth, Sean Donlon, Darren Parker, Diana D. Cook, and Thomas “Randy” Hall are sworn in by Lancaster Vice Mayor Ron Smith as members of the Architectural and Design Planning Commission on Friday in City Council chambers at City Hall. MOLLY HAUXWELL/Valley Press

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Tuesday, September 2, 2008.

Valley Press

LANCASTER – Seven members have taken their oaths of office for a new city commission created to develop architectural guidelines for future residential, commercial and industrial construction.

Diana D. Cook, Sean Donlon, Thomas “Randy” Hall, Cassandra Harvey, Darren Parker, Courtney Stallworth and Timothy Wiley were sworn in Friday by Vice Mayor Ron Smith during a brief ceremony in City Council chambers at City Hall.

The commissioners were nominated by Mayor R. Rex Parris and ratified by the City Council. Parris originally picked Cook’s husband, Richard, for one of the seats, but he declined appointment because of his professional obligations and asked that his wife be considered in his place.

The Architectural and Design Planning Commission’s work will include researching the guidelines for other communities, reviewing Lancaster’s current architecture and design, understanding its Specific Plans and recommending new guidelines for adoption by the City Council, officials said.

No date has been announced yet for the commission’s first meeting.

Tags: Architecture, City of Lancaster, Darren Parker by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Saturday, August 23, 2008.

By BOB WILSON
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER – Voting unanimously, the City Council has agreed to appoint Sean Donlon, Thomas “Randy” Hall, Cassandra Harvey, Darren Parker, Courtney Stallworth and Timothy Wiley to a new commission created to develop architectural guidelines for future residential, commercial and industrial construction in the city.

Besides recommending new aesthetic standards, the commission will resolve planning conflicts between developers and city staff members.

A seventh nominee for the commission, Richard Cook, declined appointment because of his professional obligations and asked that his wife be considered in his place.

Since his wife was not scheduled for nomination, the council took no action during the Aug. 12 on filling the seventh seat on the panel.

Commission members were directed to set a date for the panel’s first meeting, where they will seat officers and establish a regular meeting schedule.

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Tags: Architecture, City of Lancaster, Community, Darren Parker, Design by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Sunday, July 20, 2008.

By BOB WILSON
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER – The mayor is expected Tuesday to identify the people he wants the City Council to approve for positions on a new Architectural and Design Planning Commission.

The commission will be assigned the task of setting new aesthetic design standards for homes and buildings set for construction in the city.

Creation of the A&D commission was proposed by Mayor R. Rex Parris shortly after his election in April.

A past member of the primary Planning Commission, Parris said he considered the panel too busy with development plans and land-use matters to focus on issues related to aesthetics and design.

“I think it’s too late for us to do a ‘theme’ for the city, like Santa Barbara has a Spanish theme. But it’s not too late for us to do themes for (specific) areas of the city,” Parris said in May. “Now what we have is this hodge-podge of boxes in the city of Lancaster, and I want to see that changed.

“I want this (new) commission to come up with clear design standards so that when you cross Avenue M (from Palmdale), you know you’re in a new city,” he said.

“There is no reason for us to look the way we look, and I think if we had a separate planning commission to deal with those issues, it would be beneficial for all of us.”

At the council’s July 8 meeting, the mayor identified Darren Parker as one of the residents he intended to appoint, but said he had yet to decide on the rest of the slate.

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Tags: Architecture, City of Lancaster, Darren Parker, Design, Planning by admin
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