DISTRICT BLAMES DELAY IN HIRING ASTRONOMER ON RED TAPE.Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer The Australian astronomer hired to run the Palmdale School District The Palmdale School District is a school district that serves a major part of the city of Palmdale, California (USA). The Palmdale School District was first formed in 1888. Approximately 28,000 students are enrolled in the Palmdale School District. planetarium planetarium, optical device used to project a representation of the heavens onto a domed ceiling; the term also designates the building that houses such a device. A modern planetarium consists of as many as 150 motor-driven projectors mounted on an axis. will not be coming to the Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley after all because red tape delayed his visa to work in the U.S. The $1.2 million planetarium, located on the Cactus School campus, has been unused since its grand opening ceremony last October because John Shobbrook has been unable to report for work. ``We didn't expect the process to go for eight months. We thought maybe 90 days to six months. We didn't think it was eight months with no end in sight,'' school Trustee Fred Thompson said. The board voted 3-2 last week, with Trustees Sheldon Epstein and Larry Logsdon dissenting, to withdraw Shobbrook's job offer and reopen the hiring process, which is expected to take about two months. ``When it became apparent that there was no confirmed date, it was felt we needed to move on and get the planetarium open in the best interest of the students,'' Thompson said. One of the more time-consuming tasks in obtaining a work visa for Shobbrook was doing a salary comparison to determine the going wage for a planetarium director. The U.S. Department of Labor compared the Palmdale planetarium to much larger facilities and said Shobbrook's pay should be higher. District spokeswoman Diana Beard-Williams said the process bogged down in March, and school officials informed Shobbrook that things might not work out. ``We told him that at some point in time we would have to look at a cutoff time. We don't want to go another academic year without the planetarium being open,'' Beard-Williams said. ``It's not only out of his control. It's out of our control as well. We worked hard on this as well.'' Beard-Williams said Shobbrook could reapply Re`ap`ply´ v. t. & i. 1. To apply again. reapply vi → volver a presentarse, hacer or presentar una nueva solicitud for the job. Before being hired by the school district, Shobbrook worked at the Siding Spring Observatory Siding Spring Observatory, astronomical observatory located on Siding Spring Mountain, near Coonabarabran, at an altitude of nearly 4,000 ft (1,220 m) in the Warrumbungle Mts. of New South Wales, Australia. It began as a field station for Mt. in Coonabarabran, known as the astronomy capital of Australia Noun 1. capital of Australia - the capital of Australia; located in southeastern Australia Australian capital, Canberra Australia, Commonwealth of Australia - a nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; Aboriginal tribes are thought to have . He was involved in astronomy research projects, scanning the skies for supernovae, near-Earth asteroids Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are asteroids whose orbits are close to Earth's orbit. Some NEAs' orbits intersect Earth's so they pose a collision danger. On the other hand, NEAs are most easily accessible for spacecraft from Earth; in fact, some can be reached with much less fuel and the optical counterparts of gamma-ray bursts, high forms of radiation detected by orbiting spacecraft with no known cause. Prior to working at Siding, Shobbrook worked as a director of an observatory at a college in Brisbane, Australia. ``It's unfortunate, and we feel bad, but it's just one of those things,'' Trustee Helen Acosta said. ``It's the nature of the beast Nature of the Beast is the ninth episode of The WB television series Birds of Prey. The episode aired on December 18, 2003. Summary When Al Hawke, her mother's killer, is hunted by The Specialist - a metahuman assassin with the ability to pass through solid . Sometimes people can get visas real soon. ``When we hired the Canadians (for teaching positions), there was no problem. When you apply for a visa, sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. I don't think it's anybody's fault. It's one of those red tapes.'' |
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