Cyrus Kemp over at Monrovia City Watch asks just that question. “Can A Redevelopment Agency Board Approve The Repayment Of An Agency Loan To A Local Business With Revenue From The City’s General Fund?  Full post HERE.

[profusion of purple panicles in Pasadena, Originally uploaded by faria!]

Excerpted from The Economist:

Q: Do you see blogging as an inferior form of journalism?

A: I only wish more bloggers would do journalism. Meaning: independently check (alleged) facts before publishing them. Ask people for comment before printing claims about them or attributing hearsay to them. Leave the house and find things out, preferably things that surprise and confound one’s initial predispositions. Try to provide some balance. Understand that people can be hurt or even ruined by what writers write, so there is some real need for compassion and caution. Understand that an all-purpose snarky attitude is no substitute for the specialised knowledge that comes from working a beat. Newsrooms teach these values. The blogosphere seems, too often anyway, to teach contempt for them. I suppose I’ll get a flood of comments (some abusive, proving my point, but never mind) saying I paint with too broad a brush. Fair enough. Some bloggers do good work. And of course the medium is still young. But it’s already old enough, I think, so we can say it is no substitute for the newsroom journalism that is in such trouble today.

And special thanks to Faria! for her jacaranda collage. (Yes, the two are totally unrelated; so there.)

[A ride along the San Gabriel Riverbed Trail, Originally uploaded by billaday]

Bill and his father-in-law (pictured) rode down the San Gabriel River. Check out some of his stats:

Total Distance: 48.22 km (30.0 mi)
Total Time: 2:51:28
Moving Time: 2:01:33
Average Speed: 16.90 km/h (10.5 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 23.80 km/h (14.8 mi/h)
Max Speed: 40.50 km/h (25.2 mi/h)
Min Elevation: -33 m (-109 ft)
Max Elevation: 111 m (364 ft)
Elevation Gain: 200 m (658 ft)
Max Grade: 3 %
Min Grade: -5 %
Recorded: Sat May 09 07:14:02 PDT 2009
Activity type: cycling

Click the photo to find a link to a Google Map he made of the ride.

[Voting Booths at PCC, Originally uploaded by The Real Zajac]

Some of you may have heard the phrase, “This is a republic, not a democracy.” The speaker no doubt was voicing some sort of complaint about the nature of our politics, or at least the pandering policies of the politicians. But this nice catch-phrase sits at the heart of a debate that Western Civilization has been having since the time of classical Athens. I’m also reminded of another catch-phase, but from the 19th Century: “The people have spoken, the bastards.”

I’m not trying to chastise the electorate for voting down the propositions yesterday, I voted no on some of them too. I’m just not so sure that constant voter referendums are an effective way to pass critical legislation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sir Eric Maundry, who formerly wrote for this blog, has reported on his site The Sierra Madre Tattler that the infamous Sierra Madre Cumquat is back from the dead, now owned by former President of the Sierra Madre Rotary Club, one Mr. Benjamin Duward Howes. Howes has registered the domain “downtowndirt.org” and put up a place-holder graphic (which is the image seen here).

For those who don’t know, The Cumquat gained notoriety in 2007 when the local and vulgar humorist Jim Snyder became involved in local city politics, particularly over the contentious Measure V. Snyder died unexpectedly at the beginning of last year, but not before his involvement left deep divisions on the small community. Where some saw only immature satire, others viewed Snyder and the Cumquat as an arm in an increasingly dirty campaign by a small club to push an agenda that would only serve the few. Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times even did a lengthy piece on the controversy.

Sir Eric has pointed out that this is not the first time that the Cumquat has come back from the dead. But each time, it was on some free server space and was rapidly and inexplicably shut down. (I should note that within days of Snyder’s death, the original Cumquat was totally wiped off the internet, even on the Way Back Machine archives.)

His post sums up with this bit:

A friend stopped by to help me with some of the technical aspects of this post. I ran through what I discovered, and he scratched his head. “These people really aren’t all that smart, are they?” No, they’re not. Lowlife creeps? Sure. But definitely not long on intellect. After all, if they were, would they be attempting to return once again to the same losing strategy?

I know it’s not a photo related story, but the students at my old high school did something that got in the news. The Star-News and some other outlets are reporting about how the Women’s Health and Issues Club at Arcadia High School circulated a petition to remove 20 songs from this year’s Prom playlist. Being held at Universal Studios on Saturday, May 16, well over a thousand students are expected. Overall, 130 students signed the petition to block 20 specific songs on the grounds that the lyrics degrade women. I’m trying to get a list of the songs from my brother, a current senior. From what he tells me, it was not a big deal to most students, but a small number of students (mostly girls) were quite upset at having their dance “censored.” I’ve provided a link below to a video of Chris Rock commenting on some of his favorite rap songs (contains strong language)
Chris Rock about Rap Music

I’m not sure if other towns do it, but I love having Linda Proctor email me the City Manager’s Report. Anyone can receive the email…all you have to do is ask. It has news on upcoming filming’s in town, a sampling (light sampling) of the police blotter and fire department activity, news articles that featured Monrovia and other items like businesses coming to town.

I could pass on the first couple of pages of the City Manager’s Report: the subjective writing style, his personal take on events and people but even that will sometimes contain a few pieces of information you might not get anywhere else.

The last couple of City Manager’s Reports have had some items I couldn’t resist.

1. After the election, the April 24th City Manager’s Report gave an run-down of the event: the piece that stuck out was the comment that “Mr Kirby would not seek nor accept an appointment to the Council”. It was good to hear there wouldn’t be repeat of Councilmember Kirby’s first appointment but - I don’t know, it seemed presumptuous of him to think it was his call to make - and turn down. Being a big fan of letting the voter decide, I will be interested to see how the Council addresses this issue of election appointments - how do I know they will? The May 8th City Manager’s Report said so

2. Before the Election I wrote something on campaign contributions. One donor that kept popping up was Jay’s Shell. Seemed odd a gas station would give: $250 to Mary Ann Lutz, $250 to Joe Garcia, $250 to Dan Kirby, $150 to Paul Larsen, and $200 to Becky Shevlin. Hmmm…nothing to Mr. Shaw. Oh yes, - now I remember — Page 4 of the May 8thCity Manager’s Report (CMR) has a Community Development Update on the sale of Beer and Wine at Jay’s Shell. I can’t recall if it was something I read or heard - but my impression is this is an action Clarence Shaw is opposed to - possibly because of his proximity to the location? - not sure - but then that would make sense as to why Jay’s supported everyone else, except him. The update mentions a total of 6 residents were against this (two in person and 4 via email)…but after reviewing State Law, ABC regulations, police reports and other similar businesses - it was sent on to Planning with a recommendation for approval. After Planning - maybe headed to the Council - I wonder how the one candidate that didn’t receive money from Jay’s Shell will be voting?

3. The Police Blotter usually seems to be fairly light on entries. I don’t think I would call it a “Blotter” more of a “Blot-ette”. This past week in the May 8th CMR lists three events that stood out: FIGHT/DRUNK IN PUBLIC May 3rd  1:25am at a bar at the 300 block of South Myrtle, DRUNK IN PUBLIC May 3rd at 1:54am at a bar at the 400 block of West Foothill Blvd, and finally FIGHT IN PROGRESS May 3rd at 2:09am at a bar at the 300 block of South Myrtle. Sheesh - what the heck was happening that evening and early morning?!? Early Cinco de Mayo celebrating? - in any case, it was a party I missed. I was at the Clifton fundraiser that evening supporting our middle school. I wonder how often calls to the unnamed bar at the 300 block of South Myrtle happen and aren’t on the City Manager’s Report, Police Blotter section?

Check out the City Manager’s Report.

MediaTemple, the company that hosts this blog, had a mega-disaster. Unhappily, it also screwed over several projects I was in the middle of for work (back in the real-world), so what little free time I had just vanished.

Posts more recent than the ones below aren’t gone. MediaTemple swears they will be recovered. I swore…well, at MediaTemple mostly. Long and short: looking for a new hosting company that doesn’t obliterate this site at random.

Sincere apologies.

Last time I published a piece, the blog lit up like old times. It seems that my assault upon Howard Jarvis and Prop 13 (supposedly a political no-no in this state) has hit a deep nerve about California. While we got a lot of great feedback on the issue, the conversation gradually got sucked into the never-ending screaming match over illegal immigration (save that for next month). In the interests of brevity and staying-on-topic, I closed the comments (it was my decision alone and was not prompted by anything in particular). I just want to draw attention to Ms. Zucco’s post on civic nomenclature (Metroblogging has a nice post on the larger issue too) and bring things back towards a discussion of taxes.

Because that’s what I’m interested in talking about. California has a peculiar system of often overlapping tax districts, and a stranger system of limitations on both spending and revenue generation. I’ve seen some states get by just fine without an income tax, or even sales taxes. Then we have the perennial problem of “going to the voters” to balance the budget. The fact of the matter is that the people we elect (quit whining about gerrymandering for 10 minutes and own up, folks) are unable to make a budget work.

Think about it: the state’s budget system is so ridged that the legislature is constantly forced to go back to the electorate with a slate of confusing ballot propositions. If even one of these fails, we are told, it sends the budget back into deadlock. Of course, instead of rationally discussing the issue and crafting a compromise where everybody wins, the legislators are asking the great unwashed to be budgeteer for a day, and not just pitch in a helpful idea, but take the wheel of the ship of state for a spin. Why be surprised when California ends up in a muddy ditch?

Despite the claim that we pay more in taxes than other people, we don’t. Read the rest of this entry »

Signs….

There are rules for almost every aspect of signs: height, width, location, temporary vs permanent.

But what bothers me about this sign? (BTW: The sign says “First Evangelical Church, Arcadia”)

Probably not what you think…it is on a church at the corner of Foothill Blvd and Mauna Loa in Monrovia.

Knowing *where* the sign is - the town it’s in — that’s what bothers me.

This church isn’t in Arcadia, it’s in Monrovia.

With all of the rules in place: does a sign have to be accurate?