The Wonders of Loma Linda
Posted on: Wednesday, 14 May 2008, 21:00 CDT
Incorporation: 1970
Area: 7.8 Square Miles
Population: 22,451
Median household income: $49,211 in 2006
City Hall: (909) 799-2800
Chamber of Commerce: (909)799-2828
Redlands Unified School District: (909) 307-5300
Police (non-emergency only): (909) 884-0156
Fire (non-emergency only): (909) 799-2877
Loma Linda is part of Redlands Unified School District, which has one elementary school in the city.
City Hall solar energy
Some cities cut energy expenses; others bare the brunt of rising electricity costs.
Loma Linda does both.
Through a 250-kilowatt, 1,600-panel solar panel system on top of Loma Linda's city hall, library, senior center and parking ports, the city is making $6,000 a month by selling electricity back to Southern California Edison.
"It offsets our cost," said Konrad Bolowich, information systems director for the city. "We use electricity, put some back on the grid, and Edison figures out what the break-back is."
Even more solar panels will face the sun on top of Loma Linda's library in the coming months. The building just went through a major expansion.
That means more roof space - lots more.
"If it's flat and will carry the weight of a solar panel, we'll put it on," Bolowich said.
The solar panel project was one of the largest in the country when it was installed in 2007. In environment-speak, it amounts to the equivalent of powering 70 homes and taking 3,300 cars off the road.
It's only the beginning.
"We're working with builders in the city and encouraging them to put solar panels on commercial buildings," Bolowich said. "We've tested the idea out so they can do the rest."
Hiking and Biking
Call it a hiker's paradise.
Loma Linda's South Hills boast 25 miles of hiking and biking trails on 2,000 acres of land. About 1,100 acres is city-owned property, of which 250 is in Riverside County. Private owners, organizations and Redlands-based Mission Development Company own the other acres.
"We've got more open space in Loma Linda than New York has in Central Park," said Mayor Bob Christman. "There's not too many cities in the country that buy land like we've done."
Anyone can hike the South Hills, but you might unknowingly trespass on private property if you aren't following a map. The city is working on integrating the trails.
"There are a lot of unique plants, deer, coyotes, and hawks," said Jim Shipp, president of Loma Linda Area Parks and Historical Society. "There's just a lot of wildlife and wild plants that are mostly untouched by humans."
And who took the time to blaze all these trails, you may be wondering?
Southern California Edison, for starters. The electricity retailer has huge power lines planted in certain areas.
The other trails were made by animals and local residents who followed those creatures' paths.
Bryn Mawr
Bryn Mawr - it's Welsh for "Big Hill."
Most 10 Freeway commuters driving by the Mountain View exit sign with "Bryn Mawr" plastered on it probably have no idea what those two words stand for. They're just trying to pronounce it.
Bryn Mawr is key to Loma Linda's history dating back to the 19th century. It all started when Henry Drew, a rancher and banker who owned 240 acres in the area, subdivided his land and dubbed it Bryn Mawr. In 1888, he tried developing the community during an economic recession.
"It didn't go exactly as he hoped, but nevertheless he built a train station and six citrus packing sheds," said Jim Shipp, president of Loma Linda Area Parks and Historical Society. "It never became the city he anticipated."
Today the community with 200-300 residents is sandwiched between rapidly disappearing orange groves to the south and east, and Loma Linda's bedroom community to the west. Mission Road, just north of Bryn Mawr, offers a couple of historic homes dating back to Loma Linda's early years, and so does south Bryn Mawr.
Bryn Mawr made history in 2007 when Loma Linda annexed the tiny community.
Speaking of history, most of the city's residents have always been members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Today about half the population are Adventist.
Loma Linda's post office on Anderson Street reflects this. Because of Adventist beliefs, it's one of only a few post offices in the United States that's not open Saturdays. Its postal workers work Sundays to make up for it.
Even more interesting: Loma Linda has never had a council member that wasn't part of the Adventist church.
Loma Linda University Medical Center
Loma Linda wouldn't be on the national radar if it wasn't for Loma Linda University Medical Center, a renowned hospital on the cutting-edge of technology.
The university has administered more than 350,000 cancer treatments while venturing into proton therapy for brain, lung and prostate cancers. In fact, the first hospital-based proton treatment center in the United States was built here in 1990. Proton therapy is only available at four other major academic centers across the country.
It all started when a group of doctors from Los Angeles saw dollar signs after visiting the area.
"They wanted to build a health resort out of what was originally a hotel, the 1888-founded Mound City Villa," said Jim Shipp, president of Loma Linda Area Parks and Historical Society.
"They spent a lot of money refurbishing and installing equipment, but it never paid off financially."
Maybe not, but in the world of medicine, it's paid off big time. The resort turned into a Seventh-day Adventist Church sanitarium, and church members eventually transformed it into the famous university hospital we know today.
Among numerous areas of research, doctors have been instrumental in pioneering infant-heart transplants.
Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center
Loma Linda is probably the one city in San Bernardino County with the most war veterans living or visiting there at any one time.
And with good reason.
The Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center not only celebrated its 30th birthday in 2007, it saw more than 57,000 patients from San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Leaders of the 1977-founded institution - named after a local congressman - spent the past few years expanding mental health services at its five satellite branches in Upland, Corona, Sun City, Victorville and Palm Desert.
"We've had 3,985 new combat veterans coming from recent conflict; 1,184 of them have combat injuries," said Annie Tuttle, spokeswoman for the medical center.
The number of veterans using the center has tripled over the past 10 years.
"We're seeing an increase in the number of Vietnam veterans using our services," Tuttle said. "We're adding all types of diagnostics and non-invasive techniques."
Loma Linda's veteran magnet is one of only four in Southern California - the others located in Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego. It offers medical, surgical, behavioral, neurological, and a host of other services.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that history is being installed underneath Loma Linda as you read this?
Through the city's Connected Community Program, and because of a city ordinance, every new building and home must be connected to fiber-optic cable for high-speed Internet access.
Loma Linda instituted this in 2003.
"We're switching to a 100-megabyte hardware, which is one of the fastest in North America," said Konrad Bolowich, information systems director for the city. "We were recognized in 2007 as one of the top- 10 connected cities in the world by Last Mile magazine under their Smart Community Awards program."
Add that to a 2006 article in Network World magazine about the city's 10G optical core Internet grid and you realize Loma Linda is making a name for itself in the roundtable discussions of municipal technology.
"We require connections in every habitable space, which is every room except the bathroom in the house, and every work space in a commercial development," Bolowich added. "Health care requires massive amounts of data. Residents here in town are a fairly- affluent educated group within health care. We literally have radiologists reading x-rays and MRIs in their homes."
- matthew.wrye@inlandnewspapers.com
(c) 2008 The Sun, San Bernardino, Calif.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: The Sun, San Bernardino, Calif.
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