West Pasadena Residents’ Association

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President’s Message

President’s Message

Message from Evan Davis, WPRA President, Summer 2022

Introducing your new WPRA president

This is my first column as the West Pasadena Residents’ Association’s new president. I’ll introduce myself by repurposing the speech I was to have made during the annual WPRA meeting on June 2, had I not been double-booked. My daughter’s graduation trumped the meeting.

My wife, two daughters, and I moved to the WPRA service area five years ago. A friend recruited me to serve on the Board of Directors soon after we arrived, knowing I’d served on another city’s Planning Commission and that my training as a trial lawyer could come in handy.

The first impression I had of the board hasn’t changed: Any organization – charitable or otherwise – would be lucky to have such a bright, dedicated, and talented group of leaders. Our board members are either still working in or retired from top positions in their respective field.

Collectively, they spend well over 1,000 hours a year to fight for west Pasadena’s interests. To accomplish this mission, they have forged sound relationships with local, regional and even federal government leaders, as well as leaders of other Pasadena neighborhood organizations.

As you might imagine, credibility is the coin of the realm in dealing with these leaders. To that end, your board members zealously guard the WPRA’s stellar reputation by researching and deliberating before speaking. While those with whom we share our point of view may not always agree with us, they are respectful of us and our well-reasoned positions.

Our outgoing president, Dan Beal, is just one of many reasons why the WPRA has maintained its position as a leading Pasadena neighborhood organization. Dan made sure that everyone had a chance to speak. And he always had the organization’s best interests in mind. If you run into him, please thank him for his four years of service at the top and for agreeing to serve this year as vice president.

While you’re at it, thank yourself. You and your neighbors have over the past 60 years encouraged, challenged and educated the providing the critical funding necessary for us to meet our objectives. The bottom line is that the reason the WPRA has thrived for 60 years, is due to the dedication of both the board and you, our members.

Over the next year as president, I look forward to continuing what the WPRA has done well for six decades: maintaining the character of our community and enhancing the quality of life in west Pasadena … and not just fighting against all change. Rather, we strive to consider what that change means to west Pasadena before landing on a position to agree, oppose or seek to modify the proposed change.

We want to hear what you care about and have to say. And don’t be surprised if, from time to time, I ask you to help.

The more things change…

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

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