President’s Message

Message from Dan Beal, WPRA President, Fall 2020

Working on your behalf in a time of pandemic

We can fairly compliment city leaders and staff for doing their best to run a complicated organization under difficult circumstances – even before COVID-19 upped the ante exponentially. Perhaps one of the reasons for that is diligent scrutiny by a number of dedicated individuals and groups, and, yes, neighborhood associations like WPRA. Some of the issues we’ve been representing you on include:

Regional Housing Needs Allocation commonly called “RHNA”

This mind-numbingly complicated state requirement formulaically assigns new housing quotas to cities, which are then required to adjust their zoning to reach these impossible goals. Pasadena’s RHNA numbers went up from 1,332 units in the last round of allocations (2,589 total units were actually built) to an estimated 9,409 in the next round. We support affordable housing, one of RHNA’s goals, but we believe that’s an unrealistic and unachievable number, and joined with other neighborhood associations to urge the city to appeal it. Council voted to appeal, but there are additional approvals needed. We’ll stay on it.

Mansionization

As explained by Mic Hansen on page 7, the city has been considering regulating oversize, out-of-character, intrusive, and sometimes downright ugly residential construction, known as “mansionization,” which can be destructive to the character of neighborhoods. We recognize the need for architectural innovation, but without some control, get ready to welcome an architectural nightmare to your block. You think I’m exaggerating? Take a look at the “concrete battleship” on South Los Robles. While we have a few reservations, the city Planning and Development Department’s draft regulations are heading in the right way.

Lower Arroyo Habitat Restoration

As Bill Christian notes on page 10, the city Public Works Department proposes to remove 106 non-native trees, as well as shrubs and weeds near the John K. Van de Kamp (La Loma) bridge and replace them with 42 native species trees and 2,000 seedling shrubs. The city gave only a handful of organizations a mere five days to comment. [The WPRA was not one of them, but sharp-eyed board member Linda Zinn let us know.] Reasonable people can differ on removing non-native trees, but the Arroyo Seco is near-sacred to Pasadenans, and dropping a significant project into it with little or no public consultation almost guarantees dissent. Hopefully the sad lesson of the Desiderio Park restrooms will be internalized. Thanks to District 6 Councilmember Steve Madison for opening up the process.

The more things change…

30 Mar 2019

WPRA President’s Message from the Spring 2019 Newsletter

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose is one of my favorite French phrases (out of the five I know). That is to say, ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same.” To see if that maxim holds true, I took a 10-year look back into our newsletter archives (available on our website, by the way). Here’s what I found.

Back then, we were raising the alarm about over-reaching state legislative mandates that dictated the character and development of our community. “Sustainable community” goals were emerging to enable residents to rely less on individual cars and provide greater opportunities for walking, biking and mass transit. Not necessarily bad things. Now, the state is poised to require super-dense development with no parking near transit hubs, requires us to permit additional units on single-family properties (indeed, singlefamily zoning doesn’t really exist anymore) and tells us we should rely on nineteenth century technologies — bicycles and light rail — to solve twenty-first century mobility problems.

Then, we were beginning to see projects that were spatially and architecturally out of sync with Pasadena. The Westgate apartments complex (east of the 710 stub) is an egregious example of that. And let’s not forget that the Ambassador West campus (west of the 710 stub) originally called for development of 2,000 units. Now, multi-story projects pop up in our neighborhoods so often that we just sigh and move on. However, it’s not all bad news: The Ambassador Gardens development, as it is called now and is nearly complete, will end up with about 10% of what the original plan requested, a reduction in which the WPRA played a key role.

Then, we were revising the General Plan. Now, we’re revising Specific Plans … all in the hope that we’ll be able to control our own development destiny. Bonne chance! (Another of my five phrases.) Then, we were worried about our wonderful trees. We are, after all, known as a City of Trees. Now, we’re even more worried about trees … but there are fewer of them.

Then, crime, congestion and traffic safety were prime issues. Also, the city was struggling with serious budget problems, and Caltrans had begun to develop the environmental impact statements and reports that it hoped would justify closing the 710 gap with tunnels. Now, here’s another bit of good news: We are very close to winning the 60-year fight over the 710. This was no easy feat, but, crime and traffic issues continue to dog us and the city is still wrestling with serious budget challenges.

Then, Desiderio was going to be an extension of our beautiful Arroyo. Now, Desiderio will be blighted by an over-built park and unwanted restroom. The restroom alone will sop up $750,000 in scarce park funds that surely would have been better spent elsewhere… for example, for a restroom in the Linda Vista park. Or much-needed improvements to Memorial and Central parks, for which there is no funding.

Then, we were planning trails for Hahamongna. Now, we mourn a huge scar carved in it. All of this to say that the WPRA will continue to fight for our community’s best interests, and you can help! Let us know what you care about and support. Volunteer to assist our committees and advocacy efforts.

And come to our annual meeting on May 8 at the Mayfield Senior School. I hope to see you there.

And finally, back then, WPRA President Audrey O’Kelley began a similar look-back in the Winter 2009 issue with … wait for it … “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Indeed.

A perfect time to consider why we should be grateful

3 Jan 2019

WPRA President’s Message from the Winter 2019 Newsletter.

As I bask in the sun on this glorious Pasadena January day (I’m writing this before then, but it’s pretty much guaranteed, right?), I suggest we take a little time to think about why we should be grateful: Namely, we have a city government that’s pretty well scaled and responsive to what we need. The Goldilocks principle; just right.

Whatever you think of our local elected officials, individually or collectively, they spend far more hours and effort on these “part-time” jobs that take them away from their families and day jobs, than we could ever afford to pay them for.

Whatever you thought or however you voted on the city sales tax measure, it took a lot of courage and expenditure of political and personal capital to propose and advocate for it, or to oppose it.

Fortunately, we don’t have the cutthroat, uncompromising, demeaning, destructive politics we’ve seen all too often on the national level. We also don’t have a culture of corruption like some cities. We won’t have to comb the rubble of Pasadena’s governance and social systems to find enough bricks to rebuild. We’ll take a little credit here at WPRA. We like to think we weigh in thoughtfully on important issues – but there are many more people working hard for the “Pasadena Way.” When I worked for a city council of, well, a really big city in this county, while public testimony was directed to councilmembers, they often were chatting, eating, reading the paper, dozing off or absent. And public “testimony” included shouted vulgarities. We don’t have that here – both councilmembers and speakers tend to be respectful and attentive.

Government has different imperatives than the private sector. Rather than being driven by profit, government provides services and protection. You can’t make a profit on those – they have to be judged on a different scale. Of course, governments sometimes make mistakes and misallocate resources, and we must work to minimize those situations. But if you think the private sector has all the answers … I give you Lehman Brothers, WorldCom, Enron, Sears, WaMu, Toys-RUs, the Pontiac Aztec, “New Coke,” Deepwater Horizon and our very own IndyMac.

So, if you run into your district’s councilmember, or a city staffer, or police officers or firefighters, smile and say “thanks.” It’ll make both of your days. Happy New Year!

P.S. Congratulations to new Pasadena Police Department chief, John Perez. He is a 33- year veteran of the department and has led the department as interim chief since last April, when his predecessor, Phillip Sanchez, retired. We hope Chief Perez will be able to attend a WPRA board meeting this year to share his approach to policing and, more specifically, how he’ll deal with, among other issues, city crime and budget challenges.

Dan Beal president@wpra.net