[ACT] Tell the Pasadena City Council what you think...

Mon Feb 23 15:40:21 PST 2009

As I mentioned in my offline email note to you, I believe you are the  
one bringing personalities into it by wholesale condemnation of  
people's motives. Your decision to post to the group confirms it.
On Feb 23, 2009, at 3:31 PM, Lisa Hastings wrote:

> I really don't see how this kind of email is helpful to debating the  
> merits (or not) of the hillside ordinance. Sorry you took it  
> personally. Let's stick to the issues, and leave personalities out  
> of it, okay?
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 1:22 PM, Michele Zack  
> <michelez at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Nothing like a blanket condemnation of all the motives, hours of  
> unpaid effort, and results of everyone who steps up to the plate to  
> volunteer in our admittedly flawed political processes. While your  
> observations have some merit (as I have learned from cruel  
> experience), I wonder how you gained your omniscience into the  
> hearts and characters of so many people personally unknown to you?  
> Will my email arrive in the inbox of God herself? And what has She  
> done today to advance human society? There are certainly lots of  
> frustrations, but if we all give into wholesale negativity and do  
> not take some personal responsibility where will that lead?
>
> On Feb 23, 2009, at 12:16 PM, Lisa Hastings wrote:
>
>> The county is pro developer in alliance with key community  
>> "leaders." These players don't care about community concerns. All  
>> their hearings and requests for public comment are just  
>> formalities. Before the public even hears about these projects,  
>> they are already a done deal between the county, the developer, and  
>> key community "leaders," including Town Council reps.  The promises  
>> to the community are empty and designed only to shut people up. La  
>> Vina is just one example. The current example is the hillside  
>> ordinance.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 11:15 AM, SSL <steve_lamb57 at sbcglobal.net>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> LaVina was NEVER a visionary project. It was a greedy stinky hell  
>> hole from day one. But yes indeed, the County could not somehow,  
>> even enforce the developers promises what little there was, on that  
>> one.
>>
>> --- On Mon, 2/23/09, Paul Ayers <ayerspaul at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> From: Paul Ayers <ayerspaul at sbcglobal.net>
>>
>> Subject: Re: [ACT] Tell the Pasadena City Council what you think...
>> To: Meb787 at aol.com, "Lisa Hastings" <rumberalisa at gmail.com>, "DFA" <sangabrielvalley4democracy at yahoogroups.com 
>> >, steve_lamb57 at sbcglobal.net
>>
>> Cc: "Bill Bogaard" <bbogaard at ci.pasadena.ca.us>, act at fourpalms.org,  
>> "Kevin Urich" <kevinu at pasadenaweekly.com>, "larry wilson" <larry.wilson at sgvn.com 
>> >, eti at fourpalms.org
>> Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 10:07 AM
>>
>>
>> You forgot the County's handling of La Vina
>>
>> --- On Mon, 2/23/09, SSL <steve_lamb57 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> From: SSL <steve_lamb57 at sbcglobal.net>
>> Subject: Re: [ACT] Tell the Pasadena City Council what you think...
>> To: Meb787 at aol.com, "Lisa Hastings" <rumberalisa at gmail.com>, "DFA" <sangabrielvalley4democracy at yahoogroups.com 
>> >
>> Cc: "Bill Bogaard" <bbogaard at ci.pasadena.ca.us>, act at fourpalms.org,  
>> "Kevin Urich" <kevinu at pasadenaweekly.com>, "larry wilson" <larry.wilson at sgvn.com 
>> >, eti at fourpalms.org
>> Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 9:53 AM
>>
>> Lisa-
>>
>> Perhaps a little history would be helpful to you. First of all the  
>> Washingtonia Palm is the traditional Pasadena street tree for major  
>> streets. Has been since 1918 or so. In the 1970's a group of us do  
>> gooder civic design types had the idea that we wanted to make  
>> Colorado and other commercial streets in Pasadena more walkable,  
>> and more like the commercial streets of a European city. Like  
>> Paris, Utrecht, or Amsterdam with thier canopy of street trees.
>>
>> We sought to keep the historic Washingtonias as a overstory and use  
>> other trees as a understory for shade. Several businesses funded  
>> the study and elevation drawings INCLUDING VROMANS (be nice to  
>> Joel) and for many years copies of the elevations hung gathering  
>> support at Barney's LTD.
>>
>> We had specific detailed well studied recomendations for the type  
>> of tree to be planted ahd how they should be planted to ensure very  
>> little sidewalk damage and that we got healthy long lived trees.  
>> Some business owners, Jim Plotkin in particular,who was involved at  
>> the time with the Old town Merchants Association and a major  
>> landlord in old town, were rabily against the trees we selected  
>> because they were slow growing and would cover their signs for too  
>> long. The City of Pasadena being a political creature compromised  
>> and put in faster growing less hardy healthy trees and then because  
>> so much time had lapsed and costs had gone up, didnt put them in  
>> correctly. Those of us whose idea this was protested and were  
>> either ignored, or told to not let the perfect be the enemy of the  
>> good, a refrain one often hears in Pasadena from the government  
>> except when one is attempting to get say a zoning or building  
>> permit...
>>
>> Anyhow, this mess was inevitable, because the City of Pasadena  
>> screwed it up from the begining. So now that the cheap trees have  
>> their canopies finally above the signs, they are eating the  
>> sidewalk and /or dieing and must be cut down to protect the public.
>>
>> They should be cut down. Trees with long lifespans and properly  
>> planted should be planted for an understory. Sadly, even if we  
>> start in the morning, I wiull not live long enough to see them as  
>> mature civic shade trees, but part of being civic minded is leaving  
>> a better world for the next generation.
>>
>> Let us attempt to have Pasadena City Hall take the correct lessons  
>> from this:
>>
>> 1 .Some questions can or should not properly be answered with  
>> compromise
>> 2. The good is the enemy of the perfect, and of the future
>> 3. It doesnt do any good to "save" 15% today if it will cost you  
>> 150% in twenty five years.
>>
>> And of course,
>> 4. People will defend things, even if done incorrectly, that  
>> improve the humaneness of their existence.
>>
>> Steve Lamb
>>
>> P.S. Sadly what I take away from this, Devils Gate and Lincoln  
>> Crossing, is that visionaries need to never and I mean never, share  
>> any idea with any governmental agency because they are, in my  
>> wretched experience, completely incapable of ever carrying through  
>> without destroying the whole purpose of the original idea. I guess  
>> if they were capable of being visionary or carrying a visionary  
>> idea, they wouldnt be bueracrates in the first place. This  
>> miserable lesson, that they are just incapable of implimentation  
>> without destruction, has been a painful one that has taken me most  
>> of my life to learn, because at first I could just not believe the  
>> levels of mendacity, sloth and corruption. I see much more clearly  
>> now, sadly.
>>
>> --- On Sun, 2/22/09, Lisa Hastings <rumberalisa at gmail.com> wrote:
>> From: Lisa Hastings <rumberalisa at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [ACT] Tell the Pasadena City Council what you think...
>> To: Meb787 at aol.com
>> Cc: act at fourpalms.org, eti at fourpalms.org
>> Date: Sunday, February 22, 2009, 9:15 PM
>>
>> Who started this tree destruction program anyway? First on Arroyo  
>> Parkway, then Holly Street going toward city hall.  Now, Colorado.  
>> Why in the world does Pasadena want palm trees? The ones on Arroyo  
>> Parkway look terrible and Holly Street going toward city hall looks  
>> so barren now! Palm trees aren't trees anyway. They're classified  
>> as grasses! And they're not native, either! What is going on? Is  
>> this part of all the new development? Tear everything down and put  
>> up high density population development?
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 7:02 PM, <Meb787 at aol.com> wrote:
>> From Larry Wilson's column today in the Star News:
>> A protest against the downing of the stately ficus scheduled for  
>> Saturday morning in front of Vroman's and the Laemmle in the  
>> Playhouse District instead turned into a wake as dozens of people  
>> bemoaned the loss of one of the city's most prominent and useful  
>> trees, buzz-sawed overnight without notice. Tree-huggers now ask  
>> two things: For a big turnout Monday at 6:30 p.m., City Council  
>> Chambers, 100 N. Garfield Ave., Pasadena, during Public Comment.  
>> And for an immediate moratorium on the removal of all (safe) street  
>> trees until a real forestation plan is put in place.
>> Even the LA Times had a story today on the midnight massacre of the  
>> trees on Colorado Blvd - probably because Pasadena is a Tree City  
>> USA!
>> February 22, 2009
>> PASADENA
>>
>> Residents protest city's removal of ficus trees
>>
>> Before organizers could mount a planned protest Saturday, Pasadena  
>> public works crews moved in Friday night to cut down about 15 ficus  
>> trees along Colorado Boulevard, famed across America as the Rose  
>> Parade route. The mature ficus trees had been the focus of much  
>> community debate after merchants demanded their removal because the  
>> trees were obscuring signs, wrecking sidewalks and damaging plumbing.
>>
>> Ficus supporters say that the trees provide shade and beauty and  
>> that the problems could be dealt with in other ways, such as  
>> installing rubberized sidewalks to help accommodate root growth and  
>> keeping the trees trimmed.
>>
>> "We should rename Colorado 'Bleak Street,' " said resident Christle  
>> Balvin. "We've lost our shade canopy. If I were a business owner, I  
>> would no longer want to locate on this strip. . . . It just looks  
>> awful."
>>
>> The city plans in coming weeks to replace 38 mature ficus and  
>> carrotwood trees with palm and ginkgo trees. Many of the cut trees  
>> had been in front of Vroman's bookstore, a city institution.  
>> Vroman's employees released a statement criticizing the decision to  
>> remove the trees.
>>
>> The protest went on as planned Saturday, with organizer Branislav  
>> Kecman, a Caltech physicist, gathering signatures on a petition to  
>> save the remaining trees.
>>
>> City officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
>>
>> -- Martha Groves EL CAJON
>>
>>
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