[ACT] Excellent Star News editorial on Hahamongna and a brief further comment

[Meb787 at aol.com]

Our View: Many interests complicate  Hahamongna Park plans 

Posted: 11/12/2009 06:19:06 PM  PST




There may be public open spaces in the Southland with more competing  
governmental bodies, interest groups, nonprofits, private concerns and sheer  
numbers of people interested in the way it's going to look and feel in the  
future than Hahamongna Watershed Park.  
But it's hard to think of one offhand.  
The wild - sort of - land in the Arroyo Seco north of Devil's Gate Dam has  
more would-be mother and father figures than an orphaned billionaire baby 
has  potential legal guardians.  
Much of its 1,300 acres are within the city limits of Pasadena. But that is 
 very much only the beginning of the story. It is bounded on the west by La 
Ca  ada Flintridge. On the northwest by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 
Due north  is the federal Angeles National Forest. To the northeast is the 
unincorporated  town of Altadena. County Flood Control has a dog in this 
fight, as does the  county Fire Department, which has a training area there. All 
the cities of the  area take water from the ground above the Raymond Basin 
aquifer, which  Hahamongna is the prime source for, and the giant 
Metropolitan Water District of  Southern California is a player in the politics of the 
park. While the private  mining company that had the whole place to itself 
for decades as a rock quarry  is thankfully out of the picture, its legacy 
lives on. The private Tom Sawyer  Camp continues to delight new generations of 
summer campers in the park.  Equestrians abound - the Rose Bowl Riders and 
the MACH 1 therapeutic program for  disabled children, which works wonders. 
PCC has an ecology program there. The  first permanent Frisbee - er, "Disc" 
- golf course in the world is there. So are  baseball and soccer fields and 
the tranquil picnic areas of Oak Grove Park.  
So the master-planning process that has gone on for years and seemingly 
will  continue for decades has a reason to be complicated. There are so many 
competing  interests. There are battles brewing over who will get to use the 
old Forest  Service buildings, and who will take out the asbestos. There is a 
huge fight to  come over where JPL employees will park when the large lot 
on the Arroyo floor  is mostly converted to spreading basins for water. There 
will be a smaller fight  over another lot that was supposed to be temporary 
- two decades ago.  
"You'd never imagine what a bunch of dirt and bushes can cause," says one  
player in the Haha game.  
The latest skirmish is over whether all non-native trees lining an access  
trail above the equestrian area should be immediately removed - pepper 
trees,  most anything that isn't an indigenous oak.  
We fully understand the long-term good of ridding as much of the Arroyo 
Seco  as possible of invasive plantings. So many foreign plant species thrive 
all too  well in Southern California, and we would be choked in weeds such as 
the  so-called trees of heaven if we don't make with the machetes. But, 
especially in  Hahamongna, only small parts of which are covered any longer by 
anything like a  protective oak canopy, shade is at a premium, especially on 
trails used by  horses and hikers. Such is the case with the trail in 
question. We would for now  favor a go-slow approach to removing those trees.  
It's just one among many issues in Hahamongna, and a relatively minor one.  
The overriding point there is what its best users have emphasized for years 
in  community meetings: Keep the watershed park rustic. New buildings of 
any size  anywhere in the park would be inappropriate. So many people worked 
so hard to  keep the open space open. So many will work out the details of 
what that means  for years to come.  
END OF PASADENA STAR NEWS EDITORIAL 


My comments to this thoughtful and balanced editorial:
 
This is all so true.  I would just add, however, that the  complications 
are increased in the instances where the Master Plan is not being  implemented 
as adopted by the City Council.  The most obvious example is  the Sunset 
Overlook Project - under the adopted Plan all the parking was to have  been 
eliminated to be replaced by the quarter of the JPL east lot that was to  
remain.  This would have given the neighborhood a break from the many cars  that 
overrun it each weekend.  In the new plan, not only is the existing  
parking to remain but an additional 10 -15 parking spaces are proposed! 
 
Another change which may seem minor (unless you really despise asphalt) the 
 perimeter trail was supposed to have been made of "all weather, permeable  
surface" material.  Now the approaches to the handsome new Flint Wash  
Bridge are covered with asphalt.  During the master planning process, one  of 
the goals was said to be to remove as much asphalt as possible from the  b
asin.  So sad to see new asphalt being laid down instead ....
 
There apparently will be changes made to the location of the frisbee golf  
course so that it will be different from what was agreed upon in the Master 
Plan  although this has not come before the Hahamongna Advisory Committee.  
 
All of which, and more which is not so clear yet, make it very difficult  
for the public, even the public paying close attention, to follow the process 
 and understand what is going on in Hahamongna.
 
If in the future the Hahamongna Master Plan is implemented as adopted by  
the City Council, this will go a long way to lessening the complications and 
the  controversies!
Mary B.    

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