The Friends of the Carmel Valley Library are sponsoring a special music program on Sun., Jan. 18th at 2:00 p.m. in the library’s community room. Flutist Elena Yarritu will give a master class featuring advanced high-school students from Carmel Valley who will perform works by Büsser, Hüe, Mozart, Bach, and Prokofiev. They will be accompanied by pianist Dana Burnett. The class format will include coaching on various topics including practice strategies for developing technique, tone quality, and performance and presentation skills. This program is free and open to the public. The class will last about 90 minutes. The Library is located at 3919 Townsgate Drive in Carmel Valley. For further information call (858) 552-1668.

January’s free family music program sponsored by The Friends of the Carmel Valley Library is on Wed, Jan 14 at 7:00 pm. It will feature the Pacific Winds Quintet in a program of music by George M. Cohan, Mike Curtis, Francois Gossec, Charles Gounod, George Gershwin, and Dmitry Shostakovich. The members of the quintet are bassoonist Arnold Barron, oboist Beverly Haines, hornist Roger Haines, clarinetist Jim Reed, and flutist Jessica Yui. The program will last 45 minutes. The Library is located at 3919 Townsgate Drive in Carmel Valley. For further information call (858) 552-1668.

From Gina Washington, Senior Park Ranger, comes news that some of the local trails are open again. One of the reasons the trails are kept closed after the rain is that people don’t like to go through mud puddles, so they create new trails and widen what is there, sometimes into sensitive vegetation. This has happened on the North Main trail, where a new track has been created around a large puddle. Please stick to the established trails! Read on for the latest on closures… (more…)

The San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy (sdrvc.org) has maps of the trails in the San Dieguito River Park. Go to the trails page at the San Dieguito River Valley website. The trails page also provides access information and status of the trails (some of which are still closed due to previous fire damage.)

There is also a new Trails Map of the Carmel Mountain Preserve on the Carmel Valley Recreation Center page. Click on the image or visit the Rec Center Page for the map. Please remember to access the trails from established trail heads (marked on the map) and to stay on the trails. Carmel Mountain Preserve and Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve are meant as wildlife areas, with only the designated trails for people (hikers, bikers and horse riders.)

A Trails Map of the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve has been posted in the Carmel Valley Recreation Center page. Note that the trails are still wet, but some of them might reopen on Monday, Dec 29.

A message from Gina Washington, Senior Park Ranger, about the trails, which are closed for the moment. With a bit of dry weather, they should reopen soon:

The trails are still really, really wet, some are still underwater. The trails will be closed for a while. I think a good rule of thumb we can go by in the future is that we should all stay off the trails for a minimum of 72 hours after a rain unless notified otherwise….Obviously with a rain event like this one, it will be longer than 72 hours for a lot of the areas and the weather service is calling for more rain on Monday. Stay tuned for updates…

The Pacific Highlands Ranch (PHR) Maintenance Assessment District (MAD) Subcommittee will meet on Wednesday, December 17 at 6:30 PM at the Carmel Valley Recreation Center to discuss next year’s budget. A Maintenance District is like a community-wide homeowners association which maintains planted areas in the area (usually these are related to parks, street frontage and medians).

Residents of Pacific Highlands Ranch (PHR) and Carmel Valley (CV) who would like to be members of the Carmel Valley Community Planning Board (CVCPB): Elections for the two residential seats in PHR and five of the residential seats in CV are up for election in March 2009. Please attend the January CV Planning Board Meeting if you are interested (January 13, 7:00 PM at the Carmel Valley Library.) You must attend two meetings prior to the elections to be eligible. See the CVCPB Page and the CVCPB Bylaws for details on the board and elections policies. Read on for details on the neighborhoods up for election: (more…)

Business owners and employees who work in business districts in Carmel Valley and Pacific Highlands Ranch: Elections for the two Business seats on the Carmel Valley Community Planning Board are in March 2009. Please attend the January CV Planning Board Meeting if you are interested (January 13, 7:00 PM at the Carmel Valley Library.) See the CVCPB Page and the CVCPB Bylaws for details on the board and elections policies.

The Carmel Valley Leader is having a holiday decor contest, but they haven’t got any entries from Carmel Valley!!  If you or your neighbor has done a great outdoor decorating job this year, enter the contest. Do it soon, because the deadline is tomorrow, Wednesday, December 10! The paper has promised to give you until the end of the day to register. A $50 gift certificate to Harvest Ranch is on the line!! Link to the Carmel Valley Leader Holiday Decorating Contest!

The Carmel Valley Community Planning Board Elections Subcommittee will meet at 5:00 PM on Tuesday, December 9th at the Carmel Valley Library to discuss the upcoming elections. Here is the agenda: (more…)

The “Love to Dance” dance studio will perform its Holiday Show at Brighton Gardens in Carmel Valley on Sunday, December 7 at 2:00 pm. Located at 13101 Hartfield Ave, Brighton Gardens is a senior care facility. “For the residents at Brighton Gardens and our Dancers, I know we all will have so much fun! I know the residents have never had a dance studio visit them for a dance performance and I am just thrilled to offer this to the community!”  Mindy stated. Visit www.lovetodanceinc.com or call 858.229.0120 for additional information.

The MAD Subcommittee of the Carmel Valley Community Planning Group will meet on Tuesday, December 2, from 4:30 to 6:00pm at the Carmel Valley Recreation Center. Agenda follows… (more…)

I’m going to be switching my phone service from a standard line to AT&T UVerse Voice. This is a VOIP service that is supposed to give me a ton of features and better long distance and international rates. Is anyone else out there using UVerse Voice? What do you think? I’ll give a full review once it’s installed.