[RJs' Liquor Store NIX Checking Fraud Ripoff, Originally uploaded by Salaam Allah West Coast Transitphotography KING!]

This is the kind of news that you really don’t want to miss:

A man was stabbed to death in Pasadena Monday.

The 40-year-old black man, whose name has not yet been released, flagged down a person near Pasadena City College and told them he had been stabbed, coroner officials said.

He was transported from the area of 100 South Hill Avenue to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:49 p.m.

Why does that matter so much? It just so happens that yours truly lives in the environs of Pasadena City College. To be more precise, you could say we live near Caltech, but regardless: this killing happened close to home.

It’s the kind of thing that people need to know about, and yet I wonder how many do? The community around PCC doesn’t have a tight knit sense of community. While we have a better sense of our neighbors, friends who live north of Colorado describe a community of renters, who have little interaction. Given how few people read local news at all, and the absence of a strong word-of-mouth community, I can’t help but wonder how news like this would be shared. I almost didn’t notice it: I have far less time for the FC Blog than I’d prefer, and I had to do a double take as I scanned the headlines in my RSS reader.

I imagine this wouldn’t be such an issue in other areas. For instance, it’s clear that places like West Pasadena or North Pasadena have their own community organizations and mailing lists to help share information. But around PCC that doesn’t seem to exist.

[pasadena police, Originally uploaded by raalvarezphoto]

In Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, the Opinion page ran an article about the investigation into the death of Leroy Barnes. Written by Merrick Bobb of the nonprofit Police Assessment Resource Center, the article condemns the Police union for trying to hide the identity of the officers involved and getting a restraining order against their own Chief of Police, Bernard Melekian.

On Feb. 19, Leroy Barnes Jr., a 38-year-old African American man, was shot 11 times by two Pasadena police officers. The chief followed the rules of good policing, ordering an internal investigation, turning the results over to the FBI and the district attorney, and engaging a county agency to independently assess the fairness, thoroughness and integrity of the shooting review.

We grant the power of life and death to those who carry a badge. With that power comes the obligation to take personal responsibility. Anonymity defeats accountability. Absent a clear and present danger of imminent harm, which the police union has failed to show, Melekian would have been right to disclose the officers’ names. His willingness to hold himself and his department accountable to the general public is admirable.

Should this kind of insubordination against the chief be brooked? Normally the union plays hardball negotiation with the city, not the chain of command. Then of course is the question of whether the identity of officers should be disclosed at all.What do you guys think?

It was a tense game and not until the 2nd half did Monrovia pull forward and capture a lead.  By the end of the 3rd quarter they lead was such they were able to allow the Seniors on the team a chance to take a break.  At one point there were 2 freshman, a sophomore and 2 juniors out on the court.  

This win should put them ranked first going into the play offs.  Way to run it hard Wild Cats!

Pic by me from the final score with the trusty phone cam.

[Millard Canyon Wall, Originally uploaded by The Real Zajac]

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-millard30-2008nov30

In Friday’s open forum, Brian posted this question:

Some intersections have signals that allow both protected left-turns (with a green arrow), followed by a period with unprotected left-turns (where you wait until on-coming traffic has cleared before you complete your turn).

In Pasadena, they use two different setups for these intersections. Some use a 5-light setup; after the protected turn cycle, the green arrow turns to a yellow arrow, then just a green ball remains to indicate the unprotected portion of the cycle. Along Arroyo Parkway near the Gold Line crossings, the setup is to use a green arrow for the protected turn cycle, and then use a flashing yellow arrow to indicate the unprotected portion.

Is the plan to settle on one method, and change all the intersections to that? Or, will they continue with the two different setups, which can be a little confusing to the uninitiated?

Thanks.

My own searching proved less valuable than contacting the city of Pasadena. Here’s the response from Norman Baculinao:

Thank you for your inquiry and interest on this topic. You are correct
that we have two different signal display setups for what we call
“protected/permissive” left-turn (PPLT) signals. The use of green ball
during the “permissive” left-turn is the existing and the most commonly
used signal display not only in Pasadena but everywhere else nationwide.
The flashing yellow arrow display along Arroyo Parkway is a fairly
recent signal display arrangement that just got statewide and nationwide
approval as an “alternate” signal display for PPLT signals. It has been
tried and tested for over two dozen locations nationwide during the past
five to eight years and has been demonstrated to be easier to understand
for most drivers compared to the green ball standard.

At this point, the City has not made any decision to do a planned change
outs from the existing standard. However, the City will be pursuing
more flashing yellow left-turn signal installations at new signal
installation projects, and possibly at existing locations as budget
would allow it. I envision that the confusion about how the flashing
yellow left-turn signal would eventually diminish as more agencies
install the signals and it becomes more common to motorists. Due to
cost constraints and other factors, I also envision that we will have
these dual standards for some time to come.

I hope that this answers your questions. Please feel free to contact me
at 626-744-4263.

Norman Baculinao, PE
Traffic Engineering Manager

For the record, I vastly prefer the blinking yellow to the hard red arrow.

The trouble with a post office moving on via Public Eye on 2008-12-17

A reader by the name of Leonard emailed this question to the blog recently:

Why are California roads so terrible? By terrible, I mean noisy. I’m
from North Carolina, and I never remember having to shout when talking
on the freeway. The same goes for city streets. What’s the deal?

Good question. I don’t have an answer, but I do have a similar experience. I was walking recently on a street near the Batca-, the house and noticed it had recently been repaved. It’s a busy street and the reduction in road noise was striking was from a pedestrian perspective, and made for a much more pleasant experience. When driving, the difference was just as marked.

Here’s my speculation: weather fluctuates more dramatically in other states and roads get more wear and tear. Freezing, for instance, after precipitation, would radically accelerate the expansion of cracks and growth of potholes. So, you have to repave the roads on a much more regular basis, meaning that most of the time, the road actually offers a smoother overall surface (cracks aside), which makes for less noise inside and outside the car.

Any transportation gurus want to way weigh in on this admittedly minor, but nevertheless perplexing, question?

Note: Good catch, Wes.

From Reader AA:

Glad you’re back online, Centinel. The blog revived just in time for me to gripe about the latest idiocy by Pasadena parking enforcement. I live on a street just north of PCC where you can only park on one side of the street. I was using a suburban to transport our family’s recently purchased Christmas tree, and parked it on the no parking side of the street so that we didn’t have to carry it a country mile. We left the car there with the blinkers on for ten minutes while muscled the tree inside. Guess what we found when we got back to the car? A little present from the ****heads who write parking tickets for the city.

Thanks, city government. Thanks for looking out for me.

If you noticed a large black aeroplane circling overhead on Sunday afternoon, you weren’t alone. It was a B2 stealth bomber doing a practice run for the Rose Parade flyover. Michael Coppess on the East of Allen blog took a nice photograph and Isaac Garcia has a short slideshow.