Reflecting on 2025 As 2025 comes to a close, we have the opportunity to reflect on the challenges we faced and the progress we made together this year. The year 2025 was defined by difficult budget choices, serious conversations about affordability and a shared responsibility to keep our state moving forward – especially for working […]
Christmas Catalogue with Everything Under the Sun Alvah sat relaxing with a cup of hot coffee on the porch of his home at 7263 Summitrose St. in Tujunga. The rain had finally stopped and the sun had broken through. He turned as he heard some rustling behind the bushes and out popped his neighbor’s young […]
Exploring a Community Land Trust I ran into a bunch of old Crescenta Valley High School friends at Oktoberfest this year. It felt like stepping back into a familiar and comforting world. We talked about kids and work and the small details of daily life but underneath almost every conversation was the same quiet reality […]
The Overell Murders – Part Two – The Trial To recap: In 1947 a sensational murder splashed across the pages of every newspaper in the nation. A young Flintridge heiress, Beulah Louise Overell, and her boyfriend Bud Gollem, were accused of murdering her wealthy parents, Walter and Beulah Overell, to gain a substantial inheritance. Dynamite […]
Too Much Name Dropping – or The Name Game I deemed it appropriate to give this article two names. There’s the original and the revised. In one of my stories about Tujunga’s first theater, The Jewel on Sunset, someone reached out and inquired, “So was the theater in Tujunga or on Sunset Boulevard?” My response […]
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara On Nov. 6, victims of the Eaton Canyon and Pacific Palisades fires called on Governor Gavin Newsom to demand the resignation of Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. “Commissioner Lara has proven he won’t protect consumers,” said Jill Spivack, speaking at a press conference in Altadena. “Please replace him with someone who will” (Los […]
A Holiday Message 2025 As we come to the close of another remarkable year in the Crescenta Valley, the town council extends our warmest holiday cheer and heartfelt good tidings to every member of our community. This season reminds us of the strength, kindness and resilience that define our valley and we are grateful to […]
CVWD’s Money-Saving Tactics In business school, the student learns that organizations can “externalize costs of operation” by acting to pass off their costs to the community or to the ecosystem. For example, Acme Chemical could dump the byproducts of its chemical factory in the nearby creek instead of building tanks to capture those byproducts and […]
The Overell Murders – A Two-Part Tale of Innocence or Guilt La Cañada Flintridge was the source of a horrible murder in 1947, which went on to become the trial of the century. As such, it was finally eclipsed by the O.J. Simpson trial, which had many similarities. The crime involved a young heiress to […]
Strength in Sisterhood I come from a long line of strong women. My mother, grandmothers, and family before them, were born with a powerful survival instinct that carried them through the most challenging moments of adversity – moving to foreign lands, scraping to get by, adjusting to war and dealing with the premature losses of […]