Welcome to Centennial

We Need More Residents:
Addition of High-dollar Jobs in Area Anticipated

As seen in the October 20, 2002 edition of the Antelope Valley Press:

FRAZIER PARK – Some of the Kern and Los Angeles counties' most remote whistle-stops are on track for a huge invasion.But the train hauling 23,000 homes and 30,000 with the accompanying population for Centennial, a master-planned community just over the hill, is still years away. That doesn't stop the residents of Gorman, Frazier Park and Lebec from anticipating - with relish - the changes coming to their small towns. Growth looks very good to a number of folks in the 100-square mile area called Mountain Communities, which have a combined population of about 8,000.

“We need more people,” said Jim Wainright, a longtime Gorman resident who has a real estate office - The Land Office - in Frazier Park. “The more people we get to come, the better.”

Wainright, 79, makes the seven-mile trip to his office from his 140-acre ranch on a regular basis. He foresees the region becoming a recreational outlet for Centennial, which is scheduled to begin building in 2006. The population of the Mountain Communities probably won't grow too much, he said, because they are hemmed in by national forest land. Centennial will supply jobs, schools, shopping centers and homes, while the towns will supply snow sports and summer hiking and camping opportunities.

“The Centennial project will be just great,” said Wainright, who is also a member of the unofficial Mountain Communities Town Council. “It will have a positive impact on the communities here.”
The tourism dollars are likely to come into the region may not make up for the loss of isolation some residents prefer, but Wainright doesn't sympathize with the "no-growth" crowd.

“You're going to get it whether you like it or not,” he said.

“You have to be realistic about it,” said Hugh Pickrel, superintendent of Gorman School District. As a boy he used to hunt rabbits in San Fernando; he now commutes from Ventura to work. He watched urban and suburban developments creep into open spaces and views the population boom with experienced eyes. With 10% of the county's school-age children in California, any unpopulated areas are going to fill in pretty fast, he said.

“It's bound to get here. The space is here - it's going to happen,” Pickrel said. He took the job in Gorman three years ago. Plans for Centennial were announced within the year and he anticipates his “tiny” school district in going to change drastically.

“We're talking about (building) one school a year,” with a total of 11 planned just for Centennial, he said. “Big growth is fraught with big problems.”

He and the three-member school board have already started planning to expand the district, but just the technological aspects of designing a school for five years down the line are daunting. However, the district has good curriculum, infrastructure and fundamentals, he said. Test scores have risen so radically in the last two years that the district was named fifth in California in improvement.

“We have a really good base curriculum,” said Sue Page, principal at Gorman Elementary School. “It will be a good challenge. I know we're looking forward to it.”

Her school has good teachers and support staff and the gradual growth may not affect it. But finding enough teachers for the new schools could be difficult, she said.

Some of the youngsters in elementary school now may have more choices by the time they graduate and join the workforce. Frank Williams, a member of the El Cajon Unified School District Board and retired from the Kern County Sheriff's Department, noted many of the jobs in the region are tied to construction, which tends to ebb and flow with the economy.

“There are not a lot of high-dollar jobs up here,” Williams said, adding that Centennial should “provide some good jobs down the road and our younger people won't have to relocate or drive two or three hours a day.”

“It's a great opportunity for us,” he said. “I'm excited about it. This is probably our only opportunity to get a major shopping center.”

As residents explore all aspects of the slowly approaching project, they look at the economy and wonder of Centennial will come to fruition or be put on hold.

“I watch the economy try to grow and think it should be recovering about the time they are moving people in," Pickrel said. "I hope it all works in concert.”