Crescenta Valley Weekly » Antonovich

Green was the color of the day, and volunteerism was the word

Robin Goldsworthy — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:27:19 +0000

By Brandon HENSLEY

On a day for remembrance and appreciation, and where a 13-year-old Boy Scout won his very own tree, the Crescenta Valley community held its annual Arbor Day celebration on Saturday at Two Strike Park from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Hosted by the CV Town Council and L.A. County Parks and Recreation, the theme this year was “The Volunteer Spirit of Crescenta Valley.”
The day was dedicated to the memory of Solveig Traeger, a former CV council member who was active in community service for many years. She passed away last month at the age of 78.
County Supervisor Mike Antonovich spoke in front of the crowd, and recounted a brief history of the beginnings of Arbor Day in the U.S., which dates back to Nebraska 138 years ago. One million trees were planted that day.
“Today we symbolically plant a tree recognizing the volunteer spirit of Crescenta Valley, and we applaud all of your efforts which make this community so unique,” Antonovich said.
An actual tree, a crape myrtle, will be planted on the southeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue on Foothill Boulevard within the next month.
Antonovich also praised the efforts of the community over the last six months in what has been trying times.
“And we can see that…as we are recovering from the Station Fire, that we are having neighbor help neighbor, the community spirit, so that we are protecting ourselves from the mudslides,” he said.
Antonovich presented Town Council President Cheryl Davis with a proclamation for attending meetings to prepare for the Station Fire and assisting support agencies with the fire and floods.
Mary O’Keefe, the ubiquitous CV Weekly reporter, was also a speaker. O’Keefe is part of CV High’s Prom Plus committee and the Drug and Alcohol Prevention Coalition. Every third Friday she takes kids into her home and talks to them about the problems they face with drugs and school.
“We don’t just sit back and let things happen,” O’Keefe said of community. “We ask what can we do and we back that up with action and volunteerism.
“I am so proud and so grateful to have found a community that values each other enough to volunteer.”
Kathleen Ritner, deputy director of Parks and Recreation for the North Community Agency, talked about the role Two Strike has played in Arbor Day.
“The park itself was used to plant tress in honor of Arbor Day. After a while, we said we can’t take any more trees, it’s overpopulated in trees, but we do continue to host Arbor Day and plant trees somewhere else.”
According to Parks and Recreation, volunteers donate 27,000 hours per year for them, saving L.A. County around $500,000 annually.
Booths outlined the basketball court filled with information on various organizations and the option to (what else?) volunteer.
There were booths from the Boy Scouts of America, L.A. County Fire Department and the Community Emergency Response Team. Pam Gibson, regional manager of the Northeast Valley for TreePeople, was also there to talk about her organization. TreePeople volunteers are trained to help in tree planting, mountain restoration and in working in the group’s nursery, park and administrative offices.
La Crescenta Librarian Marta Wiggins headed up a booth where children could spin a wheel and receive books, dictionaries or other prizes depending on what color the wheel landed on.
Wiggins has been a CV resident for only a short time, but said she clearly recognizes the altruistic nature of the town. “I like this community a lot. I’ve been very impressed with how everybody really has a strong community spirit.”
Davis agreed. “Personally, I never volunteered for anything until I moved to the Crescenta Valley about eight years ago,” she said. “The whole atmosphere of the community is one of volunteerism.”
At the end of the festivities, a 12-foot California Sycamore tree was raffled off and the winner was Nick Naoumovitch, a Boy Scout who was visibly surprised upon hearing his name called.
“At the last minute I just put my name in,” he said.
Naoumovitch said he was happy he won, and had an idea of where it could go in his yard. “I know where to put it,” he said, adding, “My mom might be mad at me.”

In Brief

Mary O'Keefe — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:07:11 +0000

Community Meeting

According to Supervisor Michael Antonovich, a community meeting will be held in approximately two months to get community input as to where a new dog park in Crescenta Valley should be and what it should look like.

Community
Information Night

On March 1 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Crescenta Valley High School, the Glendale Unified School District will be conducting a meeting to address the state’s fiscal crisis and its impact on the district.

LA County opens disaster assistance center

Representatives from federal, state and county agencies will be available to help victims of the flood and mudflows. Engineers can help with structural questions and agents will answer questions concerning insurance coverage information. There will also be assistance with how to recover vital records and how to find volunteers to help clean damaged homes. Some residents and business owners may qualify for a low-interest loan that can help with insurance deductibles. The center is located at Central Christian Church, 5027 New York Ave. in La Crescenta.

Drug and Alcohol
Prevention Coalition

All are invited to the Drug and Alcohol Prevention Coalition tonight at 7 p.m. at the Crescenta Valley High School library. The community-based organization discusses critical issues pertaining to drug and alcohol use in the area with an emphasis on education of the problem. The coalition invites and encourages dialogue with community members on the issues our children are facing in the area.

Chicken Pox at CVHS

Crescenta Valley High School has four confirmed cases of chicken pox. Students who have not been immunized should get the vaccine. If students have a fever or rash, they should see a doctor and remain at home. The incubation period for chicken pox is 14-21 days. Any immunocompromised person or pregnant person should confer with a physician. Please inform the school if a case of chicken pox is confirmed.

Federal reimbursement

Supervisor Michael Antonovich wants the federal government to reimburse Los Angeles County for the $30 million it cost to remove nearly a million cubic yards of mud, rocks and lumber from debris basins adjacent to the Station Fire that help protect neighborhoods in the foothill areas from mudslides during rain storms.

“The U.S. Forest Service’s failure to extinguish the Station Fire in its earliest stage resulted in a catastrophe that is still impacting our County residents and taxpayers,” Antonovich said. “It caused the build up of material in these vital debris basins that must be cleared to prevent flooding and protect life and property.”

Now it’s official – our library is open

Mary O'Keefe — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:26:56 +0000

After years in the planning and building, the Crescenta Valley boasts a library that establishes a true town center.

By Mary O’Keefe

With a crowd of community members and public officials and the cutting of a ribbon, the La Crescenta Library was officially opened last Friday, Jan. 29.

“It is our hope that this library becomes the heart of this community,” said Margaret Donnellan Todd, Los Angeles County Librarian.

Although the community has been enjoying and using the library for the past few weeks, Friday’s ceremony was a chance to thank those who had been supportive throughout the long process of designing and building the facility.

Todd thanked the many volunteers and the Friends of the La Crescenta Library and the La Crescenta Elementary Korean Parent Club for their donations.

“Libraries really do represent faith in the future,” Todd said.

But faith is not enough; the effort required funds, $14.5 million in fact, to complete. Todd thanked Supervisor Michael Antonovich for his leadership, the faith he had in the project and finding the funding.

The county stepped in with $13 million, Congressman David Dreier brought in $1.5 million and $350,000 was found through the sale of surplus library property. Together the effort allowed the La Crescenta Library to grow from 4,300 square feet to 15,000 square feet.

The facility was a community effort with community input, Antonovich said.

He formed a committee that oversaw the design, building and completion of the library.

“The library is the crown jewel of [the committee’s] hard work,” he said. “There were many meetings that took place.”

He had praise for his staff for monitoring the funding that was set aside for the building.

“They made certain that the funds were not siphoned off like [what happens] to other funds in Sacramento,” Antonovich said.

The library’s design was the result of many, many discussions.

“We had a lot of meetings with community and library departments. We used local material and gave it a local ambience,” said Scott Carde, lead architect from Carde Ten Architects.

During the ribbon cutting ceremony Carde told the story

how his mother made him read three books a week. At first this was not something he enjoyed but soon came to love the assignment. He spent a lot of time at his local library.

“Libraries are in fact a magical place. They influence us. They animate us. They add to our lives in ways that are mysterious. Sometimes in a conscious way, sometimes not,” he said.

As visitors enter the library they will first notice the stained glass artwork that borders the front door. Within the glass are hand drawn portraits of significant historical buildings in Crescenta Valley. The old school bell at La Crescenta Elementary and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church are just some of the local landmarks represented. The artist, Timothy Gibbs of RD Gibbs & Co. in the Glendale/Montrose area, grew up in the community. It was his task to bring the feel of La Crescenta to the stained glass medium.

“This is the old La Crescenta Woman’s Club,” he said as he pointed to a stained glass drawing.

Gibbs has been working with glass for about 30 years. He said he liked the colors that play with the light as it streams through the doors. From design to completion, though, takes a long time.

“It is time consuming. We have to carefully plan and do a lot of research,” he said. “But I am pleased with the results.”

Murals adorn the walls of the library. Artist Evan Wilson was chosen by the committee to paint the murals in both the adult and the children sections of the library.

“I wanted to give a feeling of history,” Wilson said as he stood in front of the murals of a woman with her hand reaching to the sky and another of a man resting in the foothills.

“The original plan was not to have any people [depicted in the mural] but at some point that changed,” he said.

The man and woman are symbolic of people who contribute to knowledge, he said.

Symbols that border the top edges of the walls represent free flowing knowledge. Evans said the process of creating this type of work is difficult in the beginning because he was looking at black and white technical drawings.

“It is hard to get the feel of the building [at first],” he said.

But he worked closely with the architect and incorporated the Craftsman style of the building into this artwork.

Artists Geri and William Gould were responsible for creating the bronze plaque installed in the foyer floor of the building. William was raised in La Crescenta and Geri is a descendant of the local Indians, the Tongvas. Their artwork has been displayed in the Smithsonian and the Vatican. The library’s medallion is a star-compose overlaying a circle with symbols of the three ages in the center. The Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley commissioned it. The piece depicts the history of Crescenta Valley by highlighting three ages of human habitation set with the background of the San Gabriel Mountains. Toypurina, shaman of the local tribes, represents the Native American period. Don Jose Verdugo represents the Spanish period and the father of modern La Crescenta, Dr. Benjamin Briggs, represents the American era. In a ceremony that followed the ribbon cutting, descendents of each of the three ages were honored.

For a video view of the library, interviews with the artists and the historical society’s ceremony visit the website the Crescenta Valley Weekly website at www.cvweekly.com.

Rain Press Conference, 1/21 9am

Charly Shelton — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:45:40 +0000

Here is the full video of the Press Conference at Fire Camp 2 in La Canada, including Evacuation orders ending, and resources to find the information as it is updated minute-to-minute.

To view on the web, click here.

To view on iTunes, click here.

Supervisor warns of possible increase in wildlife encounters

Mary O'Keefe — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:12:41 +0000

County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and County pest management experts remind residents in the foothills and near the recent wildfire burn areas to be cautious about wild animals that may have been displaced by the Station Fire and subsequent debris flows. Coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, bears have all been seen in foothill neighborhoods in the past few weeks and other animals may find their way into residential areas looking for food, water and shelter.

The best way residents can prevent wild animals from frequenting residential property is not to leave any food outside. This includes pet food, and pets themselves, which wild animals may consider food. Pick up fallen fruit on property and harvest gardens regularly. It is important to keep garbage containers tightly covered. Residents should never intentionally feed wild animals, as doing so creates a danger for residents and teaches the wild animal to depend on humans. Additional Safety Tips offered by the county include:

• Do not approach wild animals, even small young ones, no matter how “cute” the animal appears.

• Consider hiking, biking or jogging with a partner.

• Try to avoid jogging or hiking near wildlife areas when wildlife is most active: dusk, nighttime, and dawn.

• Keep a close watch on small children.

• Clear brush and dense weeds on property.

• If a resident’s property is infested with rodents, consider control measures as rodents can attract hungry predators.

For immediate threats or serious injury, call 9-1-1. For concerns over sightings or evidence of wild animaxls, contact one of the authorities listed below.

County of Los Angeles Pest Management

Coyote Information: http://acwm.co.la.ca.us/scripts/coyo.htm

Or, for more information on coyotes, rodents, or similar pests, call (626) 575-5462 (Monday through Thursday, business hours)

California Department of Fish and Game (mountain lions, bears, bobcats)

Keep Me Wild: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/keepmewild/

(916) 322-8911

County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care & Control

Wild Animal Information: http://animalcare.lacounty.gov/wildinfo.asp

Shelter Information: http://animalcare.lacounty.gov/locationbycity.asp

Pasadena Humane Society

www.phsspca.org

(626) 792-7151

Glendale Humane Society

www.glendalehumane.org

(818) 242-1128

San Gabriel Valley Humane Society

www.sgvhumane.org

(626) 286-1159