Past council members gather to share war stories, recollections
By Martial Haprov
EDITOR
Her voice trembling with emotion, Heidi Larkin-Reed could barely get through the words in her hands as she tried to read them.
She was reciting Newton T. Bass' historic words spoken atop Pioneer Mountain: “This is where I want to build a town.”
The pieces of paper she held in her hands at Town Hall on Tuesday contained the original speech, including Bass' words, that she gave at a 1988 party celebrating the passage of Measure K, which allowed Apple Valley to officially incorporate.
Larkin-Reed was among five people elected to the first Town Council in that same election 25 years ago.
But before that monumental year for Apple Valley, a group of locals had to plan, organize and plan some more to get the incorporation effort into the hands — and hearts — of voters.
The team, dubbed the Apple Valley Incorporation Drive, worked for most of the 1980s to turn Apple Valley from a district into a municipality.
“We believed in it,” Larkin-Reed said. “We didn’t do all of this ‘just because.’ We really wanted this to happen.”
While many people in the area had their reasons to support incorporation, a couple of selling points rang out unanimously.
One of those points was public safety.
Rob Turner, who served on the Town Council from 1990 to 1994, said a man with a gun at an Apple Valley school put the urge in his mind to see incorporation become reality.
“We shared one deputy sheriff with Hesperia and Lucerne Valley back then,” Turner said. “One day, there was a man with a rifle on a school campus and a deputy drove up to the school about 45 minutes later. That right there — the need for protection — got my ‘yes’ vote.”
Dick Pearson, who had spearheaded the AVID effort beginning with a school project in 1980, was one of the five elected to the first Town Council.
Pearson recalled some of the hurdles the AVID team jumped through that monumental year as the election day neared.
Pearson said Measure K was planned to go onto voters’ ballots earlier in 1988, but a series of conversations and plan adjustments put the brakes on the timetable.
“We agreed we’d hold off and do it right,” Pearson said. “We were adamant that we weren’t going to race Hesperia (to incorporation).”
In holding off, Turner said Wayne Lamoreaux, who at one time served as town manager, insisted on a different way of doing things than Hesperia.
“The folks over in Hesperia were buying stuff up” to build that city, Turner said. Lamoreaux suggested the planned municipality contract the equipment to build the town instead of purchase any of it outright. Turner chalked that kind of idea up to Lamoreaux’s stable vision for the future.
“He had high marks for the success of this town,” Turner said. “We all worked hard. That was the main thing.”
Jack Collingsworth was another of the five elected to the first Town Council. He recalled the first council meetings were held in barren surroundings but with a cumulative effort in place.
“Our first meeting was at the water district, then we were at the post office, then a school — we all sat on old, steel folding chairs,” Collingsworth said. “But we were ready to go to work.”
When 13 police cars showed up in Apple Valley ready to go to work as well, Collingsworth said he felt a sense of accomplishment and reality in the incorporation.
“It was then that I knew all this that we’ve put up with to get here was worth it,” Collingsworth said. “I knew then the community was only going to get better.”
Scott Nassif sits on the current Town Council and served twice as mayor. Nassif said he attended early council meetings as a resident and interested community member.
“The earlier councils had a lot of tougher issues than we do now because their decisions involved growing and shaping the community,” Nassif said. “A lot of those hard things were fleshed out early on, but the character they established has carried on.”
Nassif said as the town grew, it was the voters who helped carry on that character.
“Apple Valley is as engaged as any voting group in the country,” Nassif said. “When things got tough, the voters and the council pulled the town out of the dark ages.”
Mark Shoup, who served multiple stints on the council between 1996 and 2006, echoed that sentiment. He said a recall in the late 1990s proved voters’ interest in their community.
On Nov. 2, 1999, an 87-percent majority of Apple Valley voters recalled three council members in light of concerns over a plan the three supported to reduce the minimum size of residential lots from a half-acre to a quarter-acre.
“Those voters made sure their voices were heard,” Shoup said.
Nassif said it’s that character, built into the town’s core and bolstered by its residents, that continues to carry Apple Valley forward.
“There’s a lot of future left in the growth and character here,” Nassif said.
Current Mayor Curt Emick said the community involved is a community in charge of its own destiny.
“We’ve made good strides since incorporation,” said Emick, who is a fan of the family-friendly environment Apple Valley has continued to perpetuate. “Our money is more directed as far as what the community wants in making it a better place to live. If we can improve on those things, bring in businesses and keep highlighting our amenities, then we’re headed in a great direction. I really love what I’m seeing.”
Larkin-Reed said councils past and the council in 2013 rely on their constituents’ voices to continue moving in an upward direction.
“The future depends on the people — engaged people — for the council to listen to,” Larkin-Reed said. “This town needs its community to come out to meetings and take part in the decisions (the council makes).”
Pointing to the boom in development around town, including the Jess Ranch Marketplace and residential community and the Civic Center, Nassif said newcomers often don’t know how much it’s grown in a quarter century.
“When people come here to Apple Valley, a lot of them wonder if it’s always been this way,” Nassif said. “It took a lot of hard work to get here, but I enjoy hearing that perspective.”
And while the town has grown leaps and bounds since that monumental incorporation year more than two decades ago, Carl Coleman, another original council member, said its identity has remained.
“As many things change, some do not,” Coleman said. “It’s grown a lot, but it’s still Apple Valley.”
Martial Haprov may be reached at 760-951-6236 or at MHaprov@VVDailyPress.com.