Pasadena Sub Rosa

SOUTH PASADENA'S TRAFFIC CIVIL WAR HEATING UP

As part of the City of South Pasadena’s Fair Oaks Avenue Corridor Improvement Project what are called intersection chokers are being installed. http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_17354896  This will result in traffic along Fair Oaks Avenue backing up for blocks, as right turn lanes are eliminated.  And if pedestrians are crossing in such intentionally narrowed intersections the traffic will pile up even worse. 

The City of South Pasadena has not only obstructed the construction of the 710 Freeway Extension, it now is installing “traffic calming” (i.e., traffic frustration) measures that will end up in north/south drivers diverting to Los Robles Avenue in San Marino.  Not to be outdone by South Pasadena, San Marino is in the process of possibly revising its traffic plan to divert its traffic to South Pasadena.

When there is no regional entity of government with any authority, or law, which provides for a court to intervene, what you get is traffic planning chaos and civil war.

Mary Gribble of San Marino’s letter in the Star News (Mar. 13) tells voters to beware of State Assemblyman Anthony Portantino’s intentions to run for David Dreier’s seat in Congressional District #26, as Portantino has been the leader of a “wolfpack” of La Canada, South Pasadena and El Sereno to block the completion of the 710 Freeway Extension that would provide traffic relief to San Marino http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/letters/ci_17607470

Former South Pasadena Mayor Harry A. Knapp has responded to Ms. Gribble’s letter with a bunch of strawman arguments insinuating she is “insane,” and ignorant of the boundaries of Congressional District 26 as well as the health hazards of living near freeways.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/letters/ci_17613481 Knapp incredibly writes that the 710 Extension would do nothing to improve San Marino’s traffic problem along Los Robles Avenue.  Knapp must have foot in mouth disease. 

Former Mayor Knapp quotes Caltrans District Director Doug Failing (appropriate name?) as an authority on emphysema and cancer purportedly being related to proximity to freeways and freeway tunnels.  Since when was a freeway engineer a health expert?  According to an online medical dictionary that I consulted, emphysema is caused by smoking.  Cancer has never been shown to be caused by proximity to freeways according to Harvard air quality researcher Steven Schwartz.  

 

COULD U.C. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE BE HIT BY A "SHITI" QUAKE?

Dana Buntrock, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Architecture, has issued a report to be very, very afraid of an earthquake hitting California that would “devastate” the state, as buildings collapse like dominoes hitting one another and “desert winds fan fires from city to city overwhelming fire departments.”http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_quake_california

Doesn’t give us too much confidence in architects or schools of architecture does it?  Given the California state budget deficit, the whole point of Ms. Buntrock’s report is presumed to be to scare us into continued funding of the U.C. Berkeley School of Architecture or California will drop into the sea.  This type of “news” should be published as satire in The Onion. 

Did it ever pass Ms. Buntrock’s mind that maybe this sort of self-serving hype only makes the public tune out any real warnings and make the public want to defund the universities as places of nonsense? There was a day when the U.C. system would never stoop to such scaremongering. Now this makes the public believe everything else coming out of the U.C. system, such as “global warming,” is pure bunk. Thank you Ms. Buntrock! 

Prof. Buntrock reports that Washington, Oregon and Northern California have subduction fault zones under the ocean similar to offshore of Japan that could cause a Tsunami of the proportion of the recent Great Japanese Tsunami.

Maybe Ms. Buntrock (one has to be careful how one spells her name) can’t understand the difference between an undersea earthquake and a terrestrial earthquake on the San Andreas Fault.  While another major quake on the San Andreas is inevitable it nonetheless would be unlikely to cause a damaging Tsunami to California. A major subduction land earthquake could cause dam failures, however, that could cause spot disasters like in Sensai Japan. 

Katsuhiko Ishibashi, Japan’s leading seismologist, has coined a new hybrid term: “genpatsu-shinsai.”  This is a cross between genpatsu (“nuclear power”) and shinsai (“quake disaster”), or nuclear quake.  It is the Japanese equivalent of California’s term “shake and bake” when we have earthquakes and heat waves.

I would like to propose a new term for a rare type of California earthquake that would be equivalent to a reverse neutron bomb: a “yuniba-shiti (university) genpatsu (nuclear) shinsai” (earthquake) or “university neutron bomb earthquake” that would only destroy university school of architecture buildings, leaving the people unharmed. And like Ms Buntrock’s name you have to be careful how you spell “yuniba shiti” in English. 

 

 

USA INC. FACING FUTURE DISINCORPORATION

Kleiner Perkins, the well known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, just released a stunning analysis prepared by their new partner Mary Meeker, a very well-known financial analyst who worked for years at Morgan Stanley and was prescient about the impact of the Internet. Meeker spent about a year gathering publicly available data and refining an analysis of the dire debt and spending fiscal crisis facing the U.S. The result appears to be the definitive compendium of data documenting the incredibly precarious and dangerous situation facing the U.S. from generations of recklessness as welfare state policies and incentives triumphed. In over 400 pages of charts, graphs and analysis Meeker carefully lays out in an easy to grasp manner the incontrovertible facts about our federal government's deficit and budget crisis using as a framework the conceit of treating the U.S. government as though it were a private company --- USA Inc. --- and conducting a financial analysis. The picture isn't pretty....and the conceit is extended by imagining what a corporate turn-around expert might recommend to correct the situation. The result is delivered in a style that may be familiar to many who have seen Wall Street institutional investor analysis on this scale --- an incredibly thorough and coherently presented narrative based almost entirely on unadulterated facts and analysis.

At least that is true of the presentation of the state we are in....unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the "what is to be done?" portion of the work. In part this is because the stated objective of this project was not to offer a programmatic set of recommendations ---- although they do offer an outline of possible options --- but rather to make the case as thoroughly, objectively and convincingly as possible as to the exact financial condition our government is in so that there can be no doubt or controversy as to what we are facing. I think she has succeeded admirably in making such a case and urge everyone at least to flip through the charts --- it's not that heavy going because her USA Inc. framework makes it an almost common sense story that can be easily understood. 

The weakest portion of the project is, in fact, the recommendations section, attenuated as it is. It is mainly unconvincing bromides of the wise elder establishment statesman sort --- trim here, compromise there, split the difference and have good faith and we'll get out of this. It is an abject failure to recognize that this crisis is political in origins...involving choices of political values and is not merely a technical problem. While this is acknowledged it is left as the job for another day or an exercise for the reader to answer the question: "what is to be done?" Nonetheless this is a major contribution to political discussion just to set out clearly and convincingly the really dire situation we face with no suspicion, I think, of a specific or hidden agenda....and, after this project...no excuse either for obfuscation or denial.

There is a vast wealth of data and analysis here --- too much to summarize in one post....but here are some highlights:

First, the "bottom line:"

Slide 27:

As USA Inc. we have a continuing and enormous negative cashflow and negative net worth...effectively "in the hole" by negative $45 TRILLION!! [Ed.: So much for the insistent liberal theme that we're not broke.]

Historical perspective:

What has caused this? It isn't defense or the Global War On Terror:

Slides 65 - 66:

It isn't taxes....in the aggregate they've grown with GDP.

Slide 150:

It isn't Too Big To Fail Wall Street banks:

Slides 191, 192:

It's entitlements. Slide 149:

Where did all this spending come from? In a nutshell....entitlements grew FOUR times more than GDP....and future entitlements are UNFUNDED.

Slide 247:

Our REAL debt includes the huge unfunded liabilities --- promises to pay without the means to do so --- from entitlements.

Slide 174:

It's later than we think....assuming that tax revenues recover to the long run average of about 20% of GDP....entitlements and interest on the debt eat up ALL taxes within 15 years....That's the best case scenario.

There is much more here....but this is as concise a summary of our predicament as I have seen, and it's sobering.

I would add just two other slides from the USA Inc. presentation. This one shows that we can't balance the budget by taxing the "rich." In order to get the deficit down to 3 percent of GDP, not to balance the budget, you would have to confiscate around 80 percent of all income over $209,000--recall that the large majority of these taxpayers pay state income taxes too--which would destroy the economy:

 

PORTANTINO'S "INOPPORTUNATINO"

From PSN Letters Page

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, has committed what might be called an "inopportunatino" with his recent announcement that he has begun fundraising to run for Congress to replace David Dreier, R-San Dimas, in the 26th Congressional District.

Back in 2009, Portantino authored California A.B. 113, which requires the sale of the properties owned by Caltrans in Pasadena, South Pasadena, and El Sereno reserved for the extension of the 710 Long Beach Freeway, in effect preventing an above-ground freeway extension from proceeding as planned.

So cities like San Marino in the 26th District and Pasadena in the 29th District have had no relief from traffic congestion on city streets. Moreover, cities such as Bradbury, Monrovia and Arcadia, all in the 26th Congressional District, have experienced greater traffic congestion from drivers trying to find an alternate northward route on the 605 Freeway to get to the 210 Foothill Freeway.

With the state unemployment, Worker's Compensation and Medi-Cal funds all broke, Portantino's elimination of the cheaper $1.3 billion alternative of a surface route in favor of a wasteful $3 billion tunnel seems reckless and irresponsible. In effect, Portantino's campaign slogan when he championed the opposition to the 710 extension was "we've got our freeways, to heck with yours!"

Portantino has been the leader of a wolf pack of cities such as La Canada Flintridge, South Pasadena and Pasadena's elected officials (not its voters), who have opposed the extension of the 710 Freeway along its originally planned surface route. What unmitigated audacity of Portantino to think he can come into the 26th District hoping that the voters will not remember that it was he who has led the opposition to solving one of its largest and longest traffic congestion problems.

Portantino is going to spin his wheels if he thinks he can come into the 26th District and run for Congress.

Mary Gribble

San Marino

 

PETER DREIER NEEDS UNION VICTIMIZATION STORIES

Occidental College professor and Pasadena resident Peter Dreier needs union victimization stories.  The only ones he can find are stories from 100 years ago and even the one he found is a tragic story of a building fire that would be unlikely under current building and fire codes.  Read here: 

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/85134/wisconsin-unions-walker-triangle-shirtwaist-fire

The political Left tried in vain to manufacture a victimization story out of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabriela Giffords, but the perpetrator ended up to be a Democrat.  

Look for some event in the Los Angeles area to be possibly provoked or twisted by the media to give the Left what they are looking for - a victimization story that proves how heartless and uncaring "Republicans," the "Tea Party," or taxpayer organizations are.  Send your candidate stories or photos or tapes of any event that can be made into a victimization story to Peter Dreier at dreier@oxy.edu  

And look for urban riots fomented by unions in our future with a complicit media. In the devastation in Northern Japan do we hear any stories of looting? But we're looking for a pretext for looting or riots here? 

$29 MILLION TSUNAMI INFO CENTER WEBSITE IS BLANK PAGE

Tsunami Info Center Web Site Fails on Day of Big Quake Despite Tens of Millions in Federal Funds

March 11th, 2011 · FROM BOB MCCARTY WRITES WEBPAGE

Like millions of people around the world, I awoke hungry for details of the8.9 megaquake that struck Japan just after 2:30 p.m. local time Friday.  When I landed at the web site for theInternational Tsunami Information Center, a center in Honolulu that was allocated $28 million for fiscal year 2011 and$29 million for fiscal year 2012, according to page 9 of PUBLIC LAW 109–424—DEC. 20, 2006, I found it didn’t work.

Follow the steps I took below, and you can see exactly what I found:

First, I visited the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center web site and clicked on the “Pacific Ocean” tab.

It took me to the page shown below.  There, I clicked on the “Tsunami Info Ctr” link in the left sidebar.

That link took me to a page where I was advised that I was about to leave the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center web site.

I went ahead and clicked on the link smack in the upper middle section of that page below the notice, “You are on your way tohttp://www.tsunamiwave.info.”  I ended up at the page shown below.

Nothing.  So I looked up — and found — the main web page for the International Tsunami Information Center (below) which featured an inviting message, “PLEASE GO TO OUR NEW ITIC WEB SITE.  Click here.”

I “clicked here” and found the web page below.

Now, I consider myself thankful that I was not in any position to have to rely upon the ITIC for up-to-date information about the tsunami that followed the massive earthquake.  In addition, I find myself wondering what the folks at ITIC did with all those millions.

 

PASADENA COUNCIL SHIFTS $183 MILLION AWAY FROM SCHOOLS

As soon as City Council election were over, the Pasadena City Council held a special meeting March 9 to shift $183 million from its redevelopment agency into the city budget to protect it from being transferred to PUSD under Gov. Brown's proposal to close down redevelopment agencies.  Read below:

CITY OF PASADENA

CITY COUNCIL AND PASADENA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING

MARCH 9, 2011

4:00 P.M.

 

PASADENA CITY HALL

COUNCIL CHAMBERS, ROOM S249

100 NORTH GARFIELD AVENUE

PASADENA, CA 91101

 

 

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a special meeting of the City Council and Pasadena Community Development Commission will be held on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, at the Pasadena City Hall, Council Chambers Room S249, Pasadena, CA 91101. The special meeting will begin at 4:00 p.m. to discuss the following:

 

1.         ROLL CALL

 

2.         PUBLIC COMMENT - LIMITED TO ITEM NO. 3 ON THIS SPECIAL MEETING NOTICE

 

3.         JOINT ACTION: AUTHORIZE THE CITY MANAGER/CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER TO TAKE CERTAIN ACTIONS RELATED TO THE TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY INTERESTS, CASH, AND OTHER ASSETS OF THE PASADENA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION TO THE CITY OF PASADENA        

            Recommendation:

It is recommended that the City Council/Pasadena Community Development Commission (PCDC) take the following actions:

(1)       Find that the transfer of any and all of PCDC’s real property interests, cash, and other assets to the City of Pasadena, as proposed herein, is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), pursuant to State CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3);

(2)       Authorize the City Manager/Chief Executive Officer to take any and all actions necessary to transfer all real property interests, cash, and other assets of the PCDC to the City of Pasadena;

(3)       Authorize the City Manager to accept all deeds transferring real property interests from the PCDC, and that such real property is accepted by the City for the purposes of furthering the goals and objectives established in the Redevelopment Plans and for such other municipal purposes as may be deemed necessary and appropriate; 

(4)       Adopt a Resolution approving certain actions related to the transfer of real property interests, cash, and other assets of the PCDC to the City of Pasadena; and

(5)       Authorize the City Manager/Chief Executive Officer to take any and all actions necessary to transfer back to the PCDC all or a portion thereof former real property interests, cash, and other assets transferred to the City of Pasadena as a result of the actions set forth herein. 

  2896k

 

BILL OF RIGHTS SUNG TO WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE

VIDEO

'The Star-Spangled Paper'

Singer Christine Lavin performs Gene Weingarten's proposed new national anthem, which sets lyrics about the Bill of Rights to the tune of the "William Tell Overture."

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

MITTLEMAN

by email

When a labor union negotiates with a private company, the owner of that company has a vested interest in not giving the union more than he can afford. If he gives too much in wages or pension demands, his company is at risk of going out of business.

The union also knows that it can "kill the golden goose" if it holds out or strikes for more than the company can afford.

The dynamic is very different when a public employee union negotiates with a city or state. In that case the union is negotiating with politicians who have nothing to lose by giving in to the demands of public employee unions.

In fact, politicians have a lot to gain. By giving in to the demands of a public employee union, these city council members (politicians) are keeping the union leadership and members happy. Happy union leaders donate huge amounts of money to politicians (mostly Democrats) and happy union members vote for politicians who accede to their demands.

In the case of public employee unions, the only ones who have something to lose are the taxpayers who have to pay for those demands to which politicians have acceded.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that the state of California has a $26.6 billion debt and $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities?

Thank you California Democratic legislators for the financial destruction of the once great state of California.

Richard Mittleman

 

CITY AND SCHOOL DISTRICT UNOFFICIAL ELECTION RESULTS

MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL

 

Mayor

51 of 51 Precincts Reporting

• Bill Bogaard -- 10,973 Votes  (100.0 %)

 

District 1

8 of 8 Precincts Reporting

• James D. Smith -- 382 Votes  (23.9 %)
• Jacque Robinson -- 1,210 Votes  (76.0 %)

 

District 2

7 of 7 Precincts Reporting

• Margaret McAustin -- 1,122 Votes  (100.0 %)

 

District 4

8 of 8 Precincts Reporting

• Allen Shay -- 390 Votes  (10.9 %)
• Jill Fosselman -- 1,265 Votes  (35.4 %)
• Khatchik Chahinian -- 522 Votes  (14.6 %)
• Gene Masuda -- 1,355 Votes  (37.9 %)
• Ranil Perera -- 37 Votes  (1.0 %)

 

District 6

9 of 9 Precincts Reporting

• Carolyn Naber -- 1,770 Votes  (44.7 %)
• Steve Madison -- 2,181 Votes  (55.2 %)

PASADENA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

 

PUSD Seat 2

74 of 74 Precincts Reporting

• Renatta Cooper -- 11,465 Votes  (94.4 %)
• Cushon Bell -- 683 Votes  (5.6 %)

 

PUSD Seat 4

74 of 74 Precincts Reporting

• Gene Stevenson -- 6,186 Votes  (44.8 %)
• Kimberly Kenne -- 7,604 Votes  (55.1 %)

 

PUSD Seat 6

74 of 74 Precincts Reporting

• Tom Selinske -- 6,785 Votes  (47.3 %)
• Sean J. Baggett -- 5,030 Votes  (35.0 %)
• Gaylaird Christopher -- 2,520 Votes  (17.5 %)