SO LITTLE TIME: When Richard Freedman came...

SO LITTLE TIME: When Richard Freedman came to the Van Nuys probation office in 1970, he monitored about 150 adults on probation. Last year, he monitored about 1,000 cases. But if anticipated county budget cuts go through by Aug. 1, Freedman will have to monitor about 5,000 adults on probation. That means he’ll have about 21 minutes with each adult per year. “If this keeps up,” said Freedman, “the supervision of people on parole will be virtually zero.”

DANGEROUS WATERS?: With three people recently killed in accidents, critics of Pyramid Lake are calling for tougher boating rules at the recreation area north of the Valley. . . . “It’s out of control,” said Brenda Emery of Canyon Country, whose friend was killed when his jet ski slammed into a boat piloted by a man charged with recklessness (B1).

BAGEL BOOM: There’s no hole in Allan Boren’s business philosophy: Boil a good bagel and they will come. . . . Boren, above, is chairman of I & Joy Manhattan Bagel company of North Hills, which hopes to bite further into the Valley’s growing bagel industry. See Valley Business, Page 10.

THE GOOD NEWS: The lowest average prices in a decade sparked a rise in condominium sales in the San Fernando Valley in June. The average price, $99,700, was a 20.6% drop from the same period a year ago. . . . The bad news: Sales of single-family homes continued to slow. See Valley Business, Page 4.

WHAT GOES UP: Skylab may have fallen back to earth 16 years ago today, but the work never slowed for Rocketdyne rocket designers in Canoga Park. At no fault of the rockets, a poorly predicted orbit caused Skylab to plunge into the ocean in 1979. But Rocketdyne in Canoga Park--which built the H-1 boosters that launched Skylab--kept right on making rockets, including the current Atlas and Delta boosters. . . . Said veteran rocket designer Dick Rhea: “I guess they were falling out of the sky as fast as we could make them.”