October 8, 2011 Meeting Summary

Agenda Items:
Preparation
Attendees
Meeting

Preparation

E-mail and phone reminders

Attendees

6 members

Meeting

Agenda Items:

The meeting began about 11:25 am

  • Neighborhood tour with City’s planning director on Friday October 21, 9-11 am
    • It is This Month!
    • We will tour our neighborhood on Friday October 21 from 9-11 am with Vince Bertoni, the city’s new Planning Director. He has invited Neighborhood Associations to set up walking tours with him in their neighborhood areas to get to know the neighborhoods and the concerns of their residents.
    • The Planning Department is responsible for things like designing and enforcing zoning codes.
    • A draft of this Tour Map including Points of Interest was passed out at our meeting and will be sent along to Mr Bertoni.
    • Our route will start at Sierra Madre Villa and  Mataro, go north on Sierra Madre Villa, west on Las Lunas, south on Avocado, east on Alameda, south on Santa Paula, west on Mataro.
    • Folks who can’t walk the distance are welcome to join any portion of the tour to participate in discussing whatever they are most passionate about.
    • Here are the specifically called out points of interest:
      • Traffic problems, including those caused by the Bed Bath & Beyond driveway.
        Also noting the commercial / neighborhood interfaces along Foothill Blvd and Sierra Madre Villa Ave.
      • Pedestrian crossing problem on Sierra Madre Villa.  Promised signal at Electronic held hostage to new development.
      • Potential future development of “Rosemead Triangle”, especially Cogent and parking lot of adjacent property to the south
      • Park issues, including pedestrian entrance, cut out for “too low” power lines, parking
      • Avocado frontage to Edison land.  Maintenance, run off, City / PWP easement usage.
      • Lack of coordination between Code Compliance, City Attorney, CRASH, MASH.  No accountability.  Lack of management of city “possessed” properties.
      • PCC-CEC street parking problem.
      • Kaiser and, potentially future, business parking on residential streets
  • Summary of Community meeting with Edison
    • A Community Meeting put together by City Councilmember Gene Masuda was held on September 30 at 6:30 pm at Ability First on the corner of Del Mar and Kinneloa.  It was announced via a postal mailed postcard and by e-mail.
    • The meeting was well attended.  Many additional chairs were brought in during the beginning of the meeting and it was still standing room only in the back.
    • Also unusual about this meeting – it started right on time!
    • All the presentations were given first without any questions.  Then the floor was opened to questions on any of the topics.  It was promised that the various speakers and staffs would stay until all questions were asked.  This worked pretty well to keep the meeting from getting bogged down, but it does mean that by the time for questions many people probably had forgotten what their questions were.  So questions were slow coming at first, but once they got going the “answers” led to more questions.
    • There were a couple of Pasadena staff presentations and a few announcements in addition to the Edison dialogue.
    • Gene Masuda stated that he would be meeting with the owner of the Albertson’s shopping center along with City staff member Ruth Martinez to try to get them to fix it up.
    • Mentioned that they are working to segment the e-mail list so that announcements can be sent more specifically to residents of affected areas.  (If you’d like to be on their e-mail list, go to the Council District 4 web page and sign up.  So far there have only been a couple of e-mails.)
    • Said they plan to keep the Council District 4 website up to date and encouraged people to send in pictures to be used.
    • “Sierra Madre Villa Improvement Project”
      • This is a misleading title used by Gene Masuda.  It has very little to do with Sierra Madre Villa.  A title used by Dan Ricks, the City’s Chief Engineer was “south access pedestrian improvement”.  They were both referring to the planned improvements for pedestrians on the east side of Madre and Sierra Madre Villa between Colorado Blvd and the Gold Line Station.
      • We discussed this project at our meeting last December:  /wp-content/archive/meetings/101211-meeting-summary.html#GoldLineSouthernAccess.  A few more details were provided at this meeting.
      • A wider sidewalk, 7 feet wide south of the freeway, 10 feet wide under the freeway, 12 feet wide from the off ramp to the station. Under the freeway some of the slope will be cut off by a low retaining wall to allow room for the wider sidewalk.
      • Landscaping will be added.
      • There will be a transportation themed artistic sculpture just north of the eastbound on ramp.  Artists are encouraged to submit proposals.  The City’s Arts & Culture Commission will review the proposals and send a recommendation to the City Council to make a decision.
      • There will be added pedestrian lighting.  Five new lights are planned under the bridge.
      • Everything between the on and off ramps will need Caltrans approval.
      • The cost is estimated at 1 million dollars, including right of way acquisition (Osh?), design, construction, administration.  The funding comes from leftover Gold Line construction funds that were going to be spent on a southern pedestrian access bridge until the city admitted that was total folly last year.
      • Schedule provided is:
        • Environmental docs and right of way acquisition by January 2012
        • MTA and Caltrans approvals February to May 2012
        • Public bid and award June to August 2012
        • Construction hopefully finished in December 2012
    • The head of the City’s Health Department promoted a new publication they just put out about Quality of Life Indices for Pasadena and promoted the Urgent Care Center there on Del Mar.  Also mentioned the upcoming new City policy requiring healthier snacks in vending machines on City property and at city sponsored events.  Also mentioned they are working on adding a low cost dental clinic at their north west Pasadena location.
    • Edison presentation was led by Marissa Castro-Salvati, who replaced David Ford as the representative to the Pasadena area.
      • Also present were two “real properties” managers, although only Bill Farley spoke.
      • They said they are starting a series of regular meetings with the City to develop and document policies of how Edison and the City will work with each other on Edison right-of-way issues.  The City’s Assistant Manager Julie Gutierrez is the lead for the City and she was at the meeting.
      • Bill Farley said the Perssons Nursery situation is very disappointing but because it is under bankruptcy proceedings the lawyers say they can’t go in and clean it up because even though all the plants are dead now they are still property subject to the proceedings.  Also Edison is a creditor of Perssons under those proceedings.
      • Said they cut the weeds in the right of way twice a year, once after spring rains and again before fall fire season.  He said they do minimal maintenance because it is funded by rate payers.  They prefer to lease the land for other uses because even if they don’t get a lot of lease income, the lease agreements require the lessees to maintain the property.
      • Edison has about 3 miles of right-of-way in Pasadena out of about 12,000 miles total.
      • For awhile, when the self storage had been proposed, Edison had a make money policy for under the wires, but the current policy is “passive uses” such as nurseries, parking lots, parks, trails.
      • They know people like the nurseries under the wires, but with the economic downturn the nursery business is shrinking, not growing.
      • Asst City Manager Julie Gutierrez said the city is looking into alternative uses such as parkland.  They’ve been looking at what other cities have done.
      • During question and answer:
        • A Lamora Ave (parallels the Edison right of way from Orange Grove to Primivera) resident complained about spring infestations of beetles spilling over into their yards and the gopher population.  Said he didn’t get any response on the beetles until he called Channel 9 and Edison’s spraying the last couple years has helped that.  Hoped to get a dialogue going to solve the gopher problem.  Fondly remembers the x-mas tree farm.
        • A long time resident from the section between Del Mar and Colorado asked why there were so many different kinds of fencing and all in bad shape?.  And why do some publicly accessible towers have climbing arrestors and others don’t?  Is it important to keep people out of the areas and off of towers or not?  If not, why not just take the crummy excuses for fencing down?  Other then the “it costs too much” excuse, they said they didn’t know the rules and had no answer for him.  Later when pressed they promised to get back to him.
        • There was a question as to “why not community gardens” which then was sort of piled on with agreement by a few others, including Masuda saying he was in favor of that.  Edison first had a strange answer that managing lots of little patches would not work for them.  That was ameliorated after someone noted that it would be the city or some third party that would lease the larger area and manage the individual gardens, so Edison would not be dealing with lots of tiny entities.   There was one resident of Upper Hastings or Kinneloa area who tried to push for a plan to do it within two weeks.   Julie Gutierrez, Asst City Manager, said the City is working on a pilot community gardens project on Caltrans land in south west Pasadena, off of Pasadena Ave.  If that works out well, it would show the way for doing it elsewhere, such as in the Edison right of way.  (No one mentioned that community gardens might not make much sense amidst neighborhoods of single family homes where people already have land to garden and that the immediate neighbors to the land might not be too appreciative of a stream of lots of people from elsewhere coming to presumably do their gardening. )
        • A older man who introduced himself as Bert from Magic Growers (a nursery wholesaler located under the lines next to Kinneloa Canyon Rd just north of New York Drive) said it was too soon to announce anything but they are working on a proposal with the city to develop a “horticultural jewel to rival Descanso Gardens” in the area where Perssons nursery has been.
        • Someone associated with the Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy reminded that they’ve been promoting a “green belt” (also sometimes called “diamond necklace”) which would include the Eaton Wash corridor, and that it all should be developed for trails and recreation.
        • Crystal Balvin suggested that Pasadena should consider putting in more soccer fields and that the Perssons lot would be especially good for that.
        • Jill Fosselman asked about undergrounding the high tension wires through Pasadena to improve the vistas and make the land more suitable for usage.  The Edison reps seemed to be taken completely by surprise by the question, was bumbling, and totally useless other then saying that Edison doesn’t do that.  (It has been said repeatedly elsewhere that it is not feasible to underground voltages that high.  In fact, when the city paid Edison over $800,000 to move the lower voltage distribution wires from the wooden poles as they go through Viña Vieja park, only some of the wires were undergrounded.  Edison put up the new center towers for the rest of the wires, saying their voltage was too high to go underground. )
    • There was a newspaper story a couple days after this meeting that claimed that it was said that the City is in negotiations with Edison to take over maintenance of all the right of way land in the City.  The story did not clearly attribute who/when/where that was said.  Do not believe that was said in the meeting, although the City powers undoubtedly would like to have the funds to be able to take them over and develop all kinds of things.
  • Edison wires activity
    • There was indeed helicopter activity to our south on the weekend of September 17 and 18. Early in the morning of Sunday the 18th, a big lift could be seen rising to the subject tower just north of the freeway. Multiple workmen were on the tower. CHP closed the for a few minutes at least twice as the bright yellow helicopter brought lines across from the south side of the freeway.
    • An Edison person at the September 30 meeting said that the park will be closed for a time as work is done on the line through it, but he did not say when that will be.  They also said the work in Pasadena was supposed to be done by the end of October.
    • We are currently in the second work time frame previously stated, with helicopters supposed to be working this weekend.  But haven’t seen or heard any evidence of it. The unexpectedly early rain this week may have caused delays, if so we should see it next weekend.  Otherwise, the section adjacent to us could still be on the original schedule of 2013.
  • 3175 Alameda Status
    • This is the house you run into coming north on Santa Paula to Alameda.
    • On Thursday October 6, MASH finally came and knocked down the weeds. Just about 18 months since the last time.
    • It is unclear what finally caused action, but we know that many neighbors were contacting Noreen Sullivan, the Council District Field Representative. Kathy also talked to her at the September 30 meeting and sent her pictures of the mess.
    • Additionally, graffiti was reported by multiple neighbors to the city on September 27. That was promptly removed by the City’s graffiti abatement crew. Apparently they don’t have the problems getting a job done that other parts of the city staff have.
    • It remains to be seen whether the city will look after it going forward without the neighbors having to complain for months on end. A member of the MASH crew reportedly told someone he’d heard it was being put up for sale. We can only hope its true.
  • Local crime summary
    • Reports from crimemapping.com:
      • Theft / Larceny, Thursday August 25, 7:36 am, petty theft, 3200 block of Estado
      • Vandalism, Monday September 12, 4:33 pm, misdemeanor malicious mischief, 3200 block of Estado
      • Drugs / Alcohol, Tuesday September 20, 11:22 pm, Mataro and Santa Paula
      • Battery, Sunday September 25, 1:20 am, 3100 block of Foothill
      • Drugs / Alcohol, Wednesday September 28, 1:20 pm, Estado and Santa Paula
  • Plastic bag ban approved for Pasadena
    • After a hearing on October 3, the City Council approved a plastic bag ban for Pasadena that is largely the same as the LA County ban that has already taken effect in unincorporated areas.  The Pasadena ban also includes a ban on giving out plastic bags at City events and property, including the Rose Bowl flea market.
    • The ban will take effect for large grocers / stores six months after the City Council has approved the final ordinance language.  For smaller grocers /stores and the Rose Bowl it will be a year later.
    • Retailers such as Best Buy are not included.  Wasn’t clear why they get a pass although it was stated they usually use heavier plastic bags.  Bags over a certain thickness can still be given away or sold under the hypothesis they are “reusable” and are less likely to become litter blowing in the wind.
    • Plastic grocery carry out bags will be banned.  The store/vendor can sell you a paper bag for 10 cents, if it meets certain recycled content requirements.  Or they can also sell or give you a “reusable” plastic bag aka. one of sufficient thickness.  The store keeps the paper bag fee, but they have to list it separately on the receipt and they have to make reports to the city about how many bags they sold.
    • The reason for banning rather then charging for plastic bags is that the state passed a law a few years ago forbidding charging for disposable plastic bags.
    • Stores will still be able to provide the thin transparent plastic bags used for fresh produce or meat.  Those weren’t banned because their use is considered necessary for health safety.  That is also why plastic bag use was not banned for restaurants / fast food establishments – the notion being that reused bags might contaminate their facilities.
  • Activity against maximum parking restrictions near Gold Line station
    • During public comment at the September 19 City Council meeting, a push was made by local developers/businessmen to change the City’s requirement that businesses within a certain distance of Gold Line stations cannot have more then an abnormally low number of parking spaces.  They were specifically targeting the requirement around the Sierra Madre Villa station as causing them to lose potential developments / tenants. A point was made that offices are more efficiently packed with people these days and the current maximums are completely unrealistic.  Think they said the max for office space here is 2 1/2 spaces per 1000 sq ft compared to a minimum of 4 in surrounding areas.
    • The Council asked City Staff to give them a presentation on the issues, including what it would take to change it now versus as part of the ongoing process of changing the General Plan and then the East Pasadena Specific Plan (which is supposed to happen next but is undoubtedly still years away from happening).
  • PCC board election Nov 8
    • All registered voters should have just gotten a sample ballot for November 8 containing a single contest – for our area’s representative on the Pasadena City College governing board.  There is one challenger to the very long time incumbent.
    • Their candidate statements indicate quite different perspectives on the state of affairs of the college district.
    • Since it is the only race on the ballot, and a very low profile post, it is likely that very few votes will be cast.  Which means if you make the effort to vote, it really might make a difference.  Don’t assume the outcome!  Make an effort to learn more, discuss it with your friends and family, and cast your ballot.
  • 10 year redistricting underway for City Council and School District
    • Every 10 years following the Census count, all the elected representative district boundaries have to be adjusted to equalize the populations among them.  This includes the City Council and School districts. Each entity has formed committees that are working on the new boundaries.  The City is actively encouraging residents to learn about and participate in the process.
    • The population in the City of Pasadena did not change a lot between the 2000 and 2010 counts.  But the north west and north central areas lost some, the city center and to the south gained the most, and east Pasadena gained some.  This probably means District 4 and 6 will shrink a little in area to move some of their population into adjacent districts, and in turn their far boundaries would pull in to put more people into the districts that lost population.
    • Since we aren’t anywhere near the district line it is highly improbably it will affect us directly unless it is decided to slice the city up in radically different ways.  That’s very unlikely.
  • anything else attendees wish to discuss
    • Used Book Sale at Hastings Branch Library, Sat Oct 15, 11am – 3 pm
      • Come browse, and buy cheaply, used books at Hastings Branch library next Saturday.
      • The used books come mostly from donations, but there are also removals from the stacks.  There are also some tapes and dvds.
      • Proceeds go to supporting Hastings Branch library.
      • Come early for largest selection; late for lowest prices.
    • Neighborhood Connections now has 150 copy limit
      • Up to now there was no explicit limit on how many copies of our yearly newsletter we could get printed for free by the City’s Neighborhood Connections
      • Until last year, they provided the paper, but then that was changed to our providing it.
      • Now they have announced a limit of 150 copies. But no details have been provided, such as whether that is imprints, or 2 sided pages, or could be multiple pages, or how often.
      • We were told previously that some neighborhood associations were getting elaborate publications copied as often as four times a year. So our 380 copies of a 2 sided page once a year was peanuts by comparison.
      • We will need to get clarification and then we can decide how to proceed for our February communication. Possibilities include reducing to a half page format to halve the number of copies, getting our limit at Neighborhood Connections and then doing the rest using our own printers and/or collecting donations for paper and ink or to use a commercial copying facility.
    • PCC Community Outreach Meeting, Oct 19, 6 pm, Sierra Madre Elementary School
      • (This item was not presented at our meeting. Announcement was received afterwards.)
      • Pasadena City College is hosting a “Community Outreach Meeting” on Wednesday October 19 at 6 pm at Sierra Madre Elementary School, 141 W. Highland Ave., Sierra Madre, CA 91024
      • Jeanette Mann says:
        • “The meeting will give the neighbors an opportunity to discuss any issues or concerns that may have about the college.”
        • “The college has two new programs and several continuing ones that provide priority enrollment to students from high school in PCC’s district. We want to make sure that the community is aware of these programs.”
      • The flyer says:
        “Topics of discussion include:
          • PCC’s Educational Master Plan
          • Successful completion in two years
          • Early College Assistance (2 + 2 + 2)
          • Program tracks
          • Opportunities to increase outreach through Community Advisory Councils
        • For more information, please call (626) 585-7202″

Next meeting is November 12, 2011, 11:15 am, at Hastings Branch Library

Adjourned about 12:30 pm