Francisco “Turtle” Estrada pictured with his family (l-r) Rafael Estrada, Jose “Froggy” Estrada, and Norma Ramos, right after he won the Championship at the Westlake Hyatt.
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Championship Belt
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One of the benefits of writing articles for the Fillmore Gazette is that I have the opportunity to meet and learn about some very interesting people, doing sometimes incredible things, who live right here in Fillmore! I had just that opportunity the other day when I met with Francisco “Turtle” Estrada! Francisco prefers to be called Turtle and I do call him Turtle for this article.

Turtle fights under the name of Francisco “Turtle” Estrada and fights with and trains in Oxnard at the West Coast Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai Center. The West Coast Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai Center, under the management of Coach Brian Espinoza, offers training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai (kick boxing), Boxing, Woman's Self Defense and Fitness. Francisco is the son of Rafael Estrada and Norma Ramos of Fillmore. Francisco has one brother, Jose “Frog” Estrada 20 yrs of Fillmore.

Turtle is 21 years old and recently received the Combat Fight League's Championship Belt the result of his winning the inaugural Combat Fight League amateur Mixed Martial Arts event competition on December 2, 2010 against Jon “The Gladiator” Gorton at the “Havoc at the Hyatt” Westlake Hyatt in Thousand Oaks. Both fighters were pretty evenly matched going into the fight; Turtle's record was 3-wins and 0-losses and The Gladiator's was 3-wins and 1-loss. From the Combat Fight League's rendition of the fight on their website: “It took Frank "Turtle" Estrada 1:07 of the first round to win the first ever Combat Fight League Championship. In the main event Estrada survived a series of punches and knees from Jon Gorton before finishing "The Gladiator" with a guillotine submission! The raucous Estrada supporters exploded once referee Cecil Peoples indicated the fight was over!” If you would like to watch the title fight that Turtle earned his belt you can view it on You Tube; Francisco “Turtle” Estrada vs Jon “The Gladiator” Gorton. I did and was totally impressed to watch the Turtle take on and beat the head taller opponent into submission!

Turtle brought to the CONTINUED »

Many Fillmore residents didn’t know a man named Roy Arnold who worked to serve them for the last 18 years. He was a quiet man who enjoyed bike riding, hiking, planting oak trees and serving Fillmore. Roy passed away on Wednesday December 22nd at age 85 after suffering a major stroke a year ago that left him partially paralyzed and never again able to walk or ride a bike. Fortunately Roy was able to stay at the Fillmore Convalescent Center where he was well cared for by the caring staff and his extraordinary wife, Luisella.

Roy began working for Fillmore as a part time engineer in 1992 after retiring as a wind tunnel test Engineer for Lockheed. His favorite project in Fillmore was building bike paths. Roy designed the Sespe Creek bike path from E Street north to 7th Street and most of the Railroad bike path. A special feature Roy added to Sespe path was the picnic table in the nook upstream of the railroad. He planted cottonwood trees around the picnic table for shade.

You may have seen Roy riding his bicycle down the sidewalks of Fillmore with a clipboard on the handle bars. He was looking for broken sidewalks to add to the repair list. Fillmore has 64 miles of sidewalks and about every four years, when the City could find the money, Roy would survey the sidewalks and prepare plans and specifications for their reconstruction. Then he would make sure the contractor would fix them correctly along with lawns and sprinklers that would get damaged by the construction.

Another specialty of Roy’s was running the City’s Pavement Maintenance computer program. Roy would ride his bike down the City streets and document the condition of the pavement noting how many cracks there were or if the pavement was failing. He would then enter that information into the Pavement Maintenance program along with the amount of traffic on each street including how many buses or trucks used the street. Then Roy would run the program and it would tell him which streets should be slurry sealed or paved first. Then Roy would put together the plans and specifications for the paving project and make sure the contractor did a good job during construction.

With Roy’s help Fillmore was the first city in Ventura County to install handicapped access ramps on every street corner. He also designed parking lot behind the Theater and prepared multiple contracts for replacing fire hydrants, water services, water valves and pipes throughout the City.

One of my greatest pleasures was riding bikes around Fillmore at lunch time with Roy inspecting the various projects underway or just enjoying beautiful Fillmore. Roy did exceptional work for the City and his quiet presence will be greatly missed.

Bert J. Rapp. P.E. Public Works Director

It’s not news to the police, sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers that New Year’s is prime time for drunk driving. They made 152 DUI arrests over the two-day holiday last year.

“Whether we reach that total depends entirely on drivers in Ventura County,” warned Cmdr. Martin Meyer of the Oxnard police, coordinator of the Avoid the 14 campaign, which is 13 days in to a winter holiday campaign ending Sunday, Jan. 2, at midnight.

Police plan intense DUI enforcement for New Year’s Eve and for New Year’s Day. There will be extra DUI patrols in Oxnard, Santa Paula, Simi Valley and Ventura. The freeways will be teeming with black-and-white California Highway Patrol cruisers.

“You’ll see a patrol car or a police motorcycle everywhere you look,” Meyer said. “Everyone who pins on a badge to go to work every day knows the completely unnecessary problems that drunk drivers cause. We take great pride in getting them off the street to keep the public safe.”

So far in the 17-day campaign, police agencies have arrested 161 DUI suspects. This is down from the 220 suspects in handcuffs at the same time last year. No one has died at the hands of an impaired driver so far in this crackdown. Last year’s winter holiday effort ended with one DUI death.

Funding for Avoid the 14 comes from a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The crackdown is named for the 14 law enforcement agencies in the county.

Details from USGS:

Magnitude 3.6
Date-Time Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 08:36:50 UTC
Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 12:36:50 AM at epicenter

Location 34.518°N, 118.681°W
Depth 18.9 km (11.7 miles)
Region SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Distances 6 km (4 miles) W (262°) from Castaic Lake dam, CA
16 km (10 miles) NE (41°) from Piru, CA
17 km (11 miles) NW (322°) from Valencia, CA
20 km (12 miles) NW (305°) from Santa Clarita, CA
65 km (40 miles) NW (322°) from Los Angeles Civic Center, CA

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles); depth +/- 0.7 km (0.4 miles)
Parameters Nph=124, Dmin=8 km, Rmss=0.43 sec, Gp= 29°,
M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=1
Source California Integrated Seismic Net:
USGS Caltech CGS UCB UCSD UNR

Event ID ci10863861

Fillmore Public Works Director Bert Rapp

After nearly 20 years of engineering Fillmore’s public works, Bert Rapp has decided to resign and transfer his talents to the Ventura River County Water District, where he was offered a higher salary as their General Manager.

Starting as City Engineer in 1991, Rapp’s first major challenge was to plan and oversee the city’s water supply. The system was woefully inadequate due to a complete lack of redundancy. Reservoir No. 2 was also taken down, and new generators for each well were placed on line. Had the old system failed the city would have been without water. Reservoir No. 1 (built in 1917), was falling apart and was replaced with a new, post-tensioned concrete reservoir. Many homes under the old reservoir were endangered in the event of a structural failure. This work was accomplished with the help of grants from FEMA.

The list of Rapp’s achievements, particularly following the devastation of the1994 Northridge quake, are numerous. He had to slate dozens of homes for demolition. Rapp planned the reconstruction of the Towne Theatre, our new City Hall, and participated in the design of four parks (Delores Day, Two Rivers, Meadowlark, and Shiells Parks).

One of his greatest achievements was the construction of our heavily-used Class One bike paths. The innovative location of the Pole Creek debris basin adjacent to El Dorado Mobil Home Park has averted a deadly threat from Pole Creek overflow and “hydraulic jump”. Rapp also designed the extensive river levee system which made Fillmore dramatically safer from flooding.

His crowning achievement, however, was the completion (against unrelenting criticism from political candidates) of Fillmore’s new, state-of-the-art water recycling plant. His plant, constructed and operated by American Water, was chosen Ventura County APWA’s Project of the Year for 2010, and has won at least 8 awards for efficiency, function, innovation, and its DBO (Design, Build, and Operate) contract. The Design Build approach (also heavily criticized by political candidates) was adopted by the County of Ventura, the City of Santa Paula, and used in Piru, as a new and efficient method of structuring major works.

Numerous traffic control elements were Rapp’s ideas as well, such as the “speed table” in front of the Theatre, and the traffic circles on River Street, which eliminated speeding trucks almost immediately.

But the water treatment plant was most controversial, with critics alleging it was a “Cadillac” plant, urging a different design, different method of financing, and different location. All criticisms have proven to be bogus. In order to discharge to the river Fillmore would have had to install reverse osmosis at twice the capital and operating cost. All the criticism directed toward Rapp and the implementation of his innovative, holistic approach to engineering problems has been proven wrong, and politically motivated. Fillmore’s water treatment plant has become the envy of many other cities.

The residents of north Fillmore, and the shopkeepers on south Central Avenue, who no longer experience flooding during rainstorms like we are experiencing today, can thank our Director of Public Works, Bert Rapp, for his imagination and determination. Through years of often savage criticism he lost neither his focus nor his temper.
The City of Fillmore owes a debt of gratitude to this man who essentially rebuilt the City after the devastating Northridge earthquake, and who has met many difficult challenges with perspicuity and patience.

Fillmore Unified School District

On December 7, 2010 State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell released drop out and graduation rates from the 2008-2009 school year. These are the most recent numbers available. Normally this data is available in the spring of each year but according to the news release school districts were given an extension on their reporting deadline due to “operational challenges” of the new CALPADS system.

According to the news release posted on the website of the California Department of Education (CDE) statewide graduation rates for 2008-2009 went up 1.6% to 70.1%. And the “adjusted four-year derived drop out rate” went up as well, from 18.9% to 21.7%. In examining subgroups the statewide graduation rate for Hispanic students is 59% with a drop out rate of 26.9% for that same subgroup. O’Connell commented, “I am glad to see the graduation rate inch up, but remain deeply concerned that the drop out rate is also increasing slightly.”

O’Connell also used the news release to make recommendations to the incoming Governor to “restore $6.8 million in federal funding set aside for CALPADS that was vetoed in October by Governor Schwarzenegger.” O’Connell explains that for three years the State has utilized “a data system that allows us to track students more accurately and have honest conversations about how to improve graduation rates and reduce drop outs among all subgroups of students.” He commented that this is the first year in which the State collected data through the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS). And while the State has been calculating data on graduation and drop out rates for three years using “student level enrollment and exit data [systems]” this new “longitudinal” system will allow the State “to calculate the most accurate graduation and drop out rates possible.” Through this system beginning in June 2005 each student was assigned a “non personally identifiable code” called a Statewide Student Identifier (SSID) that will follow the student through to twelfth grade. The goal of using SSID along with the CALPADS is to “increase accountability for districts to find students who stop coming to school.” SSID allows districts to correctly identify students who drop out, as it will tell a district if a student thought to have dropped out enrolls in another school, or if a student thought to have transferred fails to enroll in another school. O’Connell explains that “unless funding is restored, the millions of dollars already invested in CALPADS will have been wasted, and our state will be at ground zero in collecting student-level data, placing us last among the states in measuring student progress over time.” Districts are assigned the duty of collecting and reporting this information to the CDE. O’Connell also urges that our State provide “$32 million- just $5 per student- to support the workload associated with collecting, maintaining and submitting student-level data.”

CALPADS Explained: According to CONTINUED »

Ventura County Sheriff's Department

Fernando Cervantes, 48 of Fillmore, was found guilty last Friday of sexually abusing four female relatives under the age of 14. He faces 60 years to life, sentencing January 11, 2011. Cervantes was found guilty of two felony counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and two felony counts of lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under 14. The sexual abuse started in 1996 when the victims were 5 or 6 years old, and continued until 2004. The victims kept quiet about the molestations after being threatened by Cervantes; they testified at trial.
His sons, Oscar and Francisco Cervantes were also arrested and charged with molesting female relatives. Their trials are pending.