Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Altadena Elections
BLAST! BLAST! BLAST!
Last night many good people were voted off the Altadena Town Council, some who often voted with me, and some who did not. In the main they were replaced by people with deep ties to the "Not For Profit" industry. The NFP's ran some very stealth campaigns that were clearly very well organized. Very unusual for a low controversy year.
Why one asks oneself? One can not come up with an answer that does not indicate in the short term a lot more looking the other way at conflicts of interest, using the Altadena Town Council as a buggy whip for NFP funding, and probably a round of really undesirable Land Use changes. I hope I'm wrong, I hope this will be a Council that will pull together, not for personal or industry profit, but for the general good of the whole Altadena community. We will see, I suppose.
It really doesn't help that the PSN basically doesn't cover the election, nor the Weekly (once a ALTADENA paper!) and that candidates are forbidden through the Altadena Town Council bylaws from saying anything that could be construed as negative except how someone may have voted while sitting as a member, in the past. This prevents, by the construction of the rule, the usual rough and tumble search for the truth that American Elections have always been, also preventing discussions of conflicts of interests, and any real discussion of real issues facing Altadena, such as the growth of Altadena as a hub of not ofr profit funding and the resulting degradation of the quality of educational services and neighborhood quality of life.
The no negative campaigning rule turns the Town Council elections into sloganeering of empty platitudes, and is so tight in its regulation that it deprives the Altadena Citizen of the opprotunity to even know what controversies exist at the ATC level, let alone what candidates differing opinions or interests regarding those issues may be.
Thats a shame, the Altadena Citizens deserve the opprotunity to make informed choices,and as of now neither the Pasadena Star News, The Pasadena Weekly or the Altadena Town Council by laws afford them those opprotunities.
Last night many good people were voted off the Altadena Town Council, some who often voted with me, and some who did not. In the main they were replaced by people with deep ties to the "Not For Profit" industry. The NFP's ran some very stealth campaigns that were clearly very well organized. Very unusual for a low controversy year.
Why one asks oneself? One can not come up with an answer that does not indicate in the short term a lot more looking the other way at conflicts of interest, using the Altadena Town Council as a buggy whip for NFP funding, and probably a round of really undesirable Land Use changes. I hope I'm wrong, I hope this will be a Council that will pull together, not for personal or industry profit, but for the general good of the whole Altadena community. We will see, I suppose.
It really doesn't help that the PSN basically doesn't cover the election, nor the Weekly (once a ALTADENA paper!) and that candidates are forbidden through the Altadena Town Council bylaws from saying anything that could be construed as negative except how someone may have voted while sitting as a member, in the past. This prevents, by the construction of the rule, the usual rough and tumble search for the truth that American Elections have always been, also preventing discussions of conflicts of interests, and any real discussion of real issues facing Altadena, such as the growth of Altadena as a hub of not ofr profit funding and the resulting degradation of the quality of educational services and neighborhood quality of life.
The no negative campaigning rule turns the Town Council elections into sloganeering of empty platitudes, and is so tight in its regulation that it deprives the Altadena Citizen of the opprotunity to even know what controversies exist at the ATC level, let alone what candidates differing opinions or interests regarding those issues may be.
Thats a shame, the Altadena Citizens deserve the opprotunity to make informed choices,and as of now neither the Pasadena Star News, The Pasadena Weekly or the Altadena Town Council by laws afford them those opprotunities.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Lincoln Crossing
Last night the Altadena Town Council voted to request Supervisor Mike Antonovich start a Grand Jury investigation into the the conduct of the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission, the Developer and the Los Angeles County Building and Safety Department.
Over twenty years ago, Delores Weaver and the Board of the West Altadena Merchants Association went to Supervisor Antonovich and asked for his help in getting a full service supermarket to West Altadena.
The result was the start of the West Altadena Redevelopment District.
To make a very, very, very long and convoluted tale short, this resulted in a Project Area Committee (PAC), an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), the disolution of the PAC the formation of a Task Force that resulted in several prosecutions and lawsuits for conflicts of interest and corruption no progress and big huge mess, a Community formed PAC, a lawsuit to reinstate the PAC, the reinstatement of the PAC, and finally after the project area being kept by the CDC in the hands of various companies associated with Andrew Oliver, a process whereby the public generated it's own report as to what was to be in the project area through a series of facilitated visioning meetings that were funded by the County of Los Angeles. I am happy to say I fought hard and long to get those visioning meetings. I am also happy to say that I sat silent in those meetings as the Altadena Community requested what it had been telling me for years it desired. I was right when I listened in hearing them, and what we all wanted as a community, I am still proud to say, was progressive and way way ahead of it's time.
As a result of those visioning meetings, the project area was put up to RFP. Many developers submitted, including ones who had been disinterested when approached in the years before. One developer hired Eric Lloyd Wright, a great Organic Architect, and Frank Lloyd Wright's grandson. They were going to do a very green project, solar electric, ground water recharge, passive solar buildings, native plant draught tolorant landscape,LED lighting back when that was cutting edge, a plan to retain the local businesses and keep the rents low, and a site plan with exciting diagonal vistas and Architecture. The lead developer and visionary behiend much of this, Harold James, developed cancer and died shortly after the contract was let. He was eventually replaced through the efforts of a minor partner of Mr. James, Ray Carlisle, by Dorn- Platz.
Dorn-Platz busily set about to alter every single aspect of the project. Out went the solar electric. Away with the diagonal vistas, away with native draught resistant landscape, away with Eric Lloyd Wright and his buildings in service to humanity and the planet, away with human scale, walkable environments and the pleasure of place. In came a horribly designed cartoon of Wright Architecture with a less than average underparked strip mall built with substandard construction and uber high end rents.
Floors, walls and roofs leak when it rains, for over a year the sewer system was incorrectly installed and waffed sewer gas back into the building that housed local(minority) tenants, main access to the project was closed off for almost a year after the project was "open". The windows in the afternoon heat the small buildings to a point of severe discomfort even with the AC maxed.
Things went wrong. Way wrong. Dorn Platz worked actively to eliminate the local shop owners the project was built for, building errors that were obvious seemed to get passed by Building and Safety, The Community Development Commission seemed to refuse to enforce its contract with teh developer.
Then the developer started suing the tenants and trying to drive them out through legal costs, were found in default on various financial arrangements, while they had the project openly advertised for sale, in spite of the fact that their contract did not allow it to be sold for several more years. Again the CDC who are supposed to act to benefit and protect this community did nothing. Business owners were either destroyed or in the process of being destroyed. Not improved, driven to extinction.
Several Altadena Town Council members had worked for almost two years attempting to put things right to no avail. Last night, very reluctantly, they voted to request a Grand Jury to inverstigate this mess on the theory that when things are not right there generally is a reason they are not right and that reason is unknowable without a investigation that demands answers under oath. Not having the power to compell whitnesses, and not being able therefore to assertain the exact locus of the problems, was it incompetence? Inertia, Corruption? or maybe something not thought of by the public? the Town Council not knowing, and not able to compel answers, made it's request broad enough that the Grand Jury could find the truth wherever it lay.
Things should have never gone this far. The second the developer turned away from the project design by Eric Lloyd Wright that got the project awarded to his team, that should have been the end of him, when the community agreed to design was removed. It was the right thing then, and it would have saved the community a great deal of pain and division and the business owners emotional and fiscal ruin.
Over twenty years ago, Delores Weaver and the Board of the West Altadena Merchants Association went to Supervisor Antonovich and asked for his help in getting a full service supermarket to West Altadena.
The result was the start of the West Altadena Redevelopment District.
To make a very, very, very long and convoluted tale short, this resulted in a Project Area Committee (PAC), an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), the disolution of the PAC the formation of a Task Force that resulted in several prosecutions and lawsuits for conflicts of interest and corruption no progress and big huge mess, a Community formed PAC, a lawsuit to reinstate the PAC, the reinstatement of the PAC, and finally after the project area being kept by the CDC in the hands of various companies associated with Andrew Oliver, a process whereby the public generated it's own report as to what was to be in the project area through a series of facilitated visioning meetings that were funded by the County of Los Angeles. I am happy to say I fought hard and long to get those visioning meetings. I am also happy to say that I sat silent in those meetings as the Altadena Community requested what it had been telling me for years it desired. I was right when I listened in hearing them, and what we all wanted as a community, I am still proud to say, was progressive and way way ahead of it's time.
As a result of those visioning meetings, the project area was put up to RFP. Many developers submitted, including ones who had been disinterested when approached in the years before. One developer hired Eric Lloyd Wright, a great Organic Architect, and Frank Lloyd Wright's grandson. They were going to do a very green project, solar electric, ground water recharge, passive solar buildings, native plant draught tolorant landscape,LED lighting back when that was cutting edge, a plan to retain the local businesses and keep the rents low, and a site plan with exciting diagonal vistas and Architecture. The lead developer and visionary behiend much of this, Harold James, developed cancer and died shortly after the contract was let. He was eventually replaced through the efforts of a minor partner of Mr. James, Ray Carlisle, by Dorn- Platz.
Dorn-Platz busily set about to alter every single aspect of the project. Out went the solar electric. Away with the diagonal vistas, away with native draught resistant landscape, away with Eric Lloyd Wright and his buildings in service to humanity and the planet, away with human scale, walkable environments and the pleasure of place. In came a horribly designed cartoon of Wright Architecture with a less than average underparked strip mall built with substandard construction and uber high end rents.
Floors, walls and roofs leak when it rains, for over a year the sewer system was incorrectly installed and waffed sewer gas back into the building that housed local(minority) tenants, main access to the project was closed off for almost a year after the project was "open". The windows in the afternoon heat the small buildings to a point of severe discomfort even with the AC maxed.
Things went wrong. Way wrong. Dorn Platz worked actively to eliminate the local shop owners the project was built for, building errors that were obvious seemed to get passed by Building and Safety, The Community Development Commission seemed to refuse to enforce its contract with teh developer.
Then the developer started suing the tenants and trying to drive them out through legal costs, were found in default on various financial arrangements, while they had the project openly advertised for sale, in spite of the fact that their contract did not allow it to be sold for several more years. Again the CDC who are supposed to act to benefit and protect this community did nothing. Business owners were either destroyed or in the process of being destroyed. Not improved, driven to extinction.
Several Altadena Town Council members had worked for almost two years attempting to put things right to no avail. Last night, very reluctantly, they voted to request a Grand Jury to inverstigate this mess on the theory that when things are not right there generally is a reason they are not right and that reason is unknowable without a investigation that demands answers under oath. Not having the power to compell whitnesses, and not being able therefore to assertain the exact locus of the problems, was it incompetence? Inertia, Corruption? or maybe something not thought of by the public? the Town Council not knowing, and not able to compel answers, made it's request broad enough that the Grand Jury could find the truth wherever it lay.
Things should have never gone this far. The second the developer turned away from the project design by Eric Lloyd Wright that got the project awarded to his team, that should have been the end of him, when the community agreed to design was removed. It was the right thing then, and it would have saved the community a great deal of pain and division and the business owners emotional and fiscal ruin.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Forward Altadena....
Well, you'd think I'd have given up by now, but I'm in my 19th year on the Altadena Town Council. All those years ago, I thought Altadena just needed a tweak or two and it could become the most perfect place on earth. I figured I'd join the Altadena Town Council, help make some change and be done in five or six years.
Maniacal laughter can be heard as I express that thought. I had no idea just how divisive sane reasonable ideas could be in Altadena and how difficult the slightest progress could be made by those afraid of change or financially interested in community failure.
Last night I attended the meeting of the Altadena Crest Trail Working Group. We were discussing various trail entrances and the subject of the City of Pasadena's Hahamongna Watershed Park came up. That was a project Tim Brick, myself and a couple other guys came up with over breakfast of mimosa and fresh fruit at Lucy Howell's house when we were serving on Pasadena's Strategic Planning Committee, a mere twenty five years ago....It was a simple idea then- Must have been that third mimosa....
Fix Devils Gate Dam so we can hold water in back of it
Pump the local water into the local aquifer so it wont go to waste,
Get rid of as much of the non native invasive plants as possible and restore the trail heads
See simple. Anybody can understand that. Clearly it is the right thing to do. Well a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum..... the Project went to Pasadena's City staff where it has had barnacle after barnacle glued to it. A road here, a multilevel parking lot there, thirteen soccer fields, imported high saline MWD Colorado River water and hundreds of miles of pipe, dozens of pumping stations, and a small power plant, a Indian museum, a medicine wheel, almost any kind of special interest rancid pork fat you could load up in back of Devils Gate. Twenty five years of hearings, revisions and baloney. The easy part was actually getting the County of Los Angeles to fix Devils Gate, the hard part is getting the City of Pasadena to only pump in the local water and only remove the non natives and restore the trail heads. It seems something so right and simple, so elegant, can not be tolerated.
I don't mean to pick on Pasadena here, the County of Los Angeles has its own methods of preventing simple progress.
As I walked out of the meeting last night with Lori Paul, I said to her "You know Twenty years ago I'd attend meetings and there were these 50, 60 and 70 year old folks there. I'd bring up a subject and they would start eye rolling and telling me why that couldn't happen and giving me the history of how that idea had been killed several times since say, 1938. They used to piss me off, but I've come to understand they were trying to protect me from becoming them, tired, angry and disillusioned." Yeah", she said, "I'm tired, progress seems to move more slowly than a glacier around here." We looked at each other and we smiled, her eyes twinkled."Yeah, but hopefully there are a couple young wild hearted folks who are coming up. I can tell them how I failed, how Oscar Werner failed, how many other fine people failed. Maybe they can pull it off. Eventually we are gonna get our trail, a shopping district, and this community will function as a place with a proud identity." We smiled again. We Laughed. We went home hopeful. Someday there will be an old Altadenan who will only know that some now forgotten smart people made the water safe pure and clean for the future, that the trails are enjoyed and loved as they always have been, that life is good, just, and peaceful in Altadena.
Maniacal laughter can be heard as I express that thought. I had no idea just how divisive sane reasonable ideas could be in Altadena and how difficult the slightest progress could be made by those afraid of change or financially interested in community failure.
Last night I attended the meeting of the Altadena Crest Trail Working Group. We were discussing various trail entrances and the subject of the City of Pasadena's Hahamongna Watershed Park came up. That was a project Tim Brick, myself and a couple other guys came up with over breakfast of mimosa and fresh fruit at Lucy Howell's house when we were serving on Pasadena's Strategic Planning Committee, a mere twenty five years ago....It was a simple idea then- Must have been that third mimosa....
Fix Devils Gate Dam so we can hold water in back of it
Pump the local water into the local aquifer so it wont go to waste,
Get rid of as much of the non native invasive plants as possible and restore the trail heads
See simple. Anybody can understand that. Clearly it is the right thing to do. Well a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum..... the Project went to Pasadena's City staff where it has had barnacle after barnacle glued to it. A road here, a multilevel parking lot there, thirteen soccer fields, imported high saline MWD Colorado River water and hundreds of miles of pipe, dozens of pumping stations, and a small power plant, a Indian museum, a medicine wheel, almost any kind of special interest rancid pork fat you could load up in back of Devils Gate. Twenty five years of hearings, revisions and baloney. The easy part was actually getting the County of Los Angeles to fix Devils Gate, the hard part is getting the City of Pasadena to only pump in the local water and only remove the non natives and restore the trail heads. It seems something so right and simple, so elegant, can not be tolerated.
I don't mean to pick on Pasadena here, the County of Los Angeles has its own methods of preventing simple progress.
As I walked out of the meeting last night with Lori Paul, I said to her "You know Twenty years ago I'd attend meetings and there were these 50, 60 and 70 year old folks there. I'd bring up a subject and they would start eye rolling and telling me why that couldn't happen and giving me the history of how that idea had been killed several times since say, 1938. They used to piss me off, but I've come to understand they were trying to protect me from becoming them, tired, angry and disillusioned." Yeah", she said, "I'm tired, progress seems to move more slowly than a glacier around here." We looked at each other and we smiled, her eyes twinkled."Yeah, but hopefully there are a couple young wild hearted folks who are coming up. I can tell them how I failed, how Oscar Werner failed, how many other fine people failed. Maybe they can pull it off. Eventually we are gonna get our trail, a shopping district, and this community will function as a place with a proud identity." We smiled again. We Laughed. We went home hopeful. Someday there will be an old Altadenan who will only know that some now forgotten smart people made the water safe pure and clean for the future, that the trails are enjoyed and loved as they always have been, that life is good, just, and peaceful in Altadena.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Green City?
The City of Pasadena and the Pasadena Building Department now pride themselves on being a "green City". This designation would indicate to most that they accept and encourage building practices that are most sensitive to the planet and encourage the least use of materials and energy. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As a residential designer who practices in the Southern California region, I find that Pasadena isthe most difficult place in the region to use any "green" technologies, and when "green' results are gotten they are gotten with the highest cost alternative possible both in terms of materials and labor.
As a small example, when doing a remodel and seeking a cathedral ceiling where one presently does not exist, it is common to use spray in urathane foam on the existing rafters. This saves wood, and labor, while giving the highest possible R value to the ceiling and stiffening the structure by tieing it together and making it absolutly mold and waterproof in case of a roof leak. I can use this material in Monrovia, in L.A. County and almost anywhere in America, but NOT Pasadena. In Pasadena, I must replace the 2" x 6" or 2"x8" rafters with 2"x12" and use fiberglass insulation. This causes more thrust against the walls and as a result requires increased connectors and often wall columns, with resulting increases in concrete footings. On the life cycle energy front, even 12" deep fiberglass batts are 40% lower in R value than spray in insulation. Additionally, all of the roof sheathing and roofing must be replaced and the existing gets to go in the landfill. This is wasteful and counter productive beyond belief. It is the Pasadena way.
Want to use LED lighting in a kitchen or bathroom because it gives off superior light quality with no headaches to people with stigmatisms in their eyesight and produces the most lumens per watt of any acceptable lighting type? Pasadena will insist you use 40% less energy efficient, shorter bulb life, Flourecent light instead. It is the Pasadena Way.
Want to build leak proof skylights onsite with refridgerator gaskets and G.E. Thermoclear, as you can in most of the nation? Again Oh No you dont! Only leaky factory made less efficient, more expensive, skylights may be used. Again it's the Pasadena Way.
These are but small examples of already decade or decades old "green" technologies, long since proven and in use throughout the rest of the nation and world, forbidden in Pasadena. It is not that these materials are unsafe. They have extensive safety records world wide. They just dont have "approval" in Pasadena.
The Building department in Pasadena is preventing the lowest cost both in terms of money and environmental impact, materials and methods that can be used to reduce energy consumption. You have to ask who benefits from this madness, and only one entity does- The City of Pasadena, who tax the homeowner on the dollar cost of the improvements and who sell the energy to run the buildings. In other words, while the citizen, the nation and planet lose, the City of Pasadena gains. It is the Pasadena Way.
As a residential designer who practices in the Southern California region, I find that Pasadena isthe most difficult place in the region to use any "green" technologies, and when "green' results are gotten they are gotten with the highest cost alternative possible both in terms of materials and labor.
As a small example, when doing a remodel and seeking a cathedral ceiling where one presently does not exist, it is common to use spray in urathane foam on the existing rafters. This saves wood, and labor, while giving the highest possible R value to the ceiling and stiffening the structure by tieing it together and making it absolutly mold and waterproof in case of a roof leak. I can use this material in Monrovia, in L.A. County and almost anywhere in America, but NOT Pasadena. In Pasadena, I must replace the 2" x 6" or 2"x8" rafters with 2"x12" and use fiberglass insulation. This causes more thrust against the walls and as a result requires increased connectors and often wall columns, with resulting increases in concrete footings. On the life cycle energy front, even 12" deep fiberglass batts are 40% lower in R value than spray in insulation. Additionally, all of the roof sheathing and roofing must be replaced and the existing gets to go in the landfill. This is wasteful and counter productive beyond belief. It is the Pasadena way.
Want to use LED lighting in a kitchen or bathroom because it gives off superior light quality with no headaches to people with stigmatisms in their eyesight and produces the most lumens per watt of any acceptable lighting type? Pasadena will insist you use 40% less energy efficient, shorter bulb life, Flourecent light instead. It is the Pasadena Way.
Want to build leak proof skylights onsite with refridgerator gaskets and G.E. Thermoclear, as you can in most of the nation? Again Oh No you dont! Only leaky factory made less efficient, more expensive, skylights may be used. Again it's the Pasadena Way.
These are but small examples of already decade or decades old "green" technologies, long since proven and in use throughout the rest of the nation and world, forbidden in Pasadena. It is not that these materials are unsafe. They have extensive safety records world wide. They just dont have "approval" in Pasadena.
The Building department in Pasadena is preventing the lowest cost both in terms of money and environmental impact, materials and methods that can be used to reduce energy consumption. You have to ask who benefits from this madness, and only one entity does- The City of Pasadena, who tax the homeowner on the dollar cost of the improvements and who sell the energy to run the buildings. In other words, while the citizen, the nation and planet lose, the City of Pasadena gains. It is the Pasadena Way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)