Climate Change and Wildfires This month we’ve set another record in California, one we never wanted to reach. According to California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection – CAL FIRE– since the beginning of the year until the time I penned this editorial, California wildfires have burned over 3.2 million acres (as we go to […]
Value of Motel Obviously, the current [La Crescenta Motel] is outdated but the need for a modern foothill community hotel remains. It would much better serve the community than a four- or five-story affordable housing structure with all the problems associated with it. The large increase in vacant multistory business buildings in LA and Glendale […]
La Crescenta’s Connection to the ‘I Love Lucy’ Show This story comes to us from the late Charles Bausback. Charles was an institution here in the valley. He was a fabulous storyteller and he had a photographic memory of the past. Some of his stories seemed far-fetched and some I frankly doubted. But over […]
Hot – and Dangerous – Month It’s September, school is in session and life is getting a little back to our new normal; however, with September comes extreme heat. The state’s power grid was stressed by record heat across the entire service area over the holiday weekend, currently affecting close to 36,000 Southern California […]
Yasmin Beers’s Failed Leadership: Glendale Needs an Outside City Manager A few weeks ago Yasmin Beers announced her retirement as Glendale’s city manager after less than two-and-a-half years in that job. Serving a part-time Council and rotating mayor, our city manager wields especially enormous power. Ms. Beers leaves Glendale in the midst of a crisis […]
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I have lived on only six streets in my lifetime – five of them were in the foothill communities that lie between the San Gabriel mountains and the Verdugo hills. These small towns within the big city are so special and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I truly […]
1917 Murder: Robbery or Ill-fated Love Triangle? – Part 2 Last week we read about the murder of Albert De Marcus, a 25-year-old driver of a “jitney” (an unlicensed taxi, equivalent to today’s Uber or Lyft). He had picked up a fare after dark in Glendale and was found dead the next morning behind […]
Not the ‘New Normal’ Who are we kidding? There is nothing normal about remote learning. The photos and accompanying stories in CV Weekly (Aug. 20) about our youth stuck at home and isolated on a computer are downright depressing. Although Governor Newsom claims that he is “following the science“ by keeping the school closed, there […]
1917 Murder: Robbery or Ill-fated Love Triangle? – Part 1 Twenty-five-year-old Albert de Marcus had checked himself into the Thorneycroft Farms, a private sanitarium located near Adams and Windsor in Glendale. Albert was suffering from “poor health” (perhaps tuberculosis?). But he was a handsome single young man, and had a way with women. He juggled […]
Fighting to Extend Unemployment Benefits for All Coronavirus has brought about an unprecedented economic crisis: the unemployment rate is the highest it has been since the Great Depression, countless businesses have been forced to permanently shut their doors and millions of American families are struggling to make rent and put food on the table. […]