By Julie BUTCHER

While the town site was first plotted and named in 1887, Glendale was officially incorporated as a city on Feb. 16, 1906 and on Tuesday night, the Glendale City Council celebrated the 120th birthday of Glendale.

“As we reflect on Glendale’s 120 years of history,” said Glendale Fire Chief Jeff Brooks, “it’s clear that public safety has always been central to who we are as a city. From our earliest days in 1906 when Orron E. Patterson oversaw both the police and fire departments, Glendale understood that [protecting] lives, homes and neighborhoods was foundational to building a strong community. Over the decades, our fire department has grown alongside the city, adapting to new risks, new technologies and new expectations while never losing sight of our mission: service, prevention, resilience.”

Interim Police Chief Robert William told the Council that the night was also about looking forward.

“Beyond traditional policing, our work today includes prevention, education, and meaningful partnership with the community we serve,” he said. “Through growth, change and challenge, our focus has remained steady: service, integrity and safety.”

“This milestone reminds us how generations of public servants have helped shape our community. For 120 years, public works has grown alongside Glendale. In the early 1900s, our focus was on essentials: unpaved roads, basic water and drainage, infrastructure for a small but growing city,” said public works director Daniel Hernandez. “Today, public works supports a modern city of close to 200,000, maintaining streets; managing traffic and stormwater; delivering capital improvement projects; providing reliable transit services; advancing sustainability; and supporting integrated waste services that keep our city clean and healthy.”

Mayor Ara Najarian recalled that it was “only yesterday that we celebrated our centennial at the Civic Auditorium. I was a freshly-minted councilmember.”

“I recently visited Malibu, incorporated in 1991 – Santa Clarita [incorporated] in the 1980s. We’ve been at it for 120 years. It’s not easy running a city. It is challenging for everyone– not just the electeds – and it’s great that we’ve managed to maintain our own identity,” the mayor observed.

Councilmember Vartan Gharpetian credited the “people who started this city” with having a “great vision – the way the city’s developed.” 

“It’s a full-service city: fire department, police department, public works, landfill, our own Glendale Water and Power power plants, and on and on,” said Gharpetian. “Everything you see in the city is strategically located and situated so the fire department can get to any part of the city within four to five minutes. It’s not by accident; it’s by design. Water reaches our homes by gravity; it’s not pumped to our homes, so even if there’s a power outage, we will have water.”

Gharpetian noted the intentional development of a central downtown core surrounded by increasingly less dense neighborhoods, eventually reaching single-family areas. 

“It’s all designed well so people can have a comfortable life,” he said. “We have a good quality of life in Glendale because of the vision that they had at that time.”

Following up on concerns raised by parents of special needs children, the Council considered fencing several of the city’s playgrounds to best protect children. Director of Community Services and Parks, Onnig Bulanikian, recommended starting with Maple Park as it is already an all-inclusive park, then Pelanconi and Montrose parks. Montrose Park is slated for a full upgrade, the first it has seen since 1999. Enclosing each of the three parks in four-foot fencing would cost approximately $110,000.

Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian wants to pursue joint efforts with the school district to co-utilize safe school grounds as well as moving forward with fencing the playground at Maple Park, seeking potential grant or other funding.

Mayor Najarian requested updates on long-standing proposals for cooperative uses of park areas around Wilson and Cerritos schools.

Councilmember Gharpetian raised concerns he has heard about a house on Aspen Oak Lane being utilized as a drug rehab facility and the lack of local control over this kind of zoning. He also raised concerns about California taxing the bonuses of Super Bowl athletes and whether this would deter in the future such sporting events being played in California. Gharpetian cited pending legislation he worries will increase the cost of housing by charging developers – actions he said will disproportionately harm low-income and working families.

“ACA 14 was voted down – that was a ban on taxing your savings, your retirement and the equity in your home because that’s coming too – they’re talking about it. Wake up, people! The county tax measure? Cities are celebrating. Palmdale and Lancaster would be over 11% in sales tax – the highest in the nation – Palmdale and Lancaster are not Malibu or Santa Monica; they’re working-class people who live there,” Councilmember Gharpetian concluded his warnings.

Mayor Najarian addressed his concerns about the Glendale school district “as a mayor, a parent, a grandparent and a longtime member of this community who cares about every child in Glendale.”

Najarian recounted concerns he raised “two and a half years ago and the considerable controversy caused at the time.” Now, the mayor reports, there is an “ongoing case of horrific sexual abuse at a GUSD school perpetrated by an aide against the most vulnerable children. This tragedy should never have happened. Yet it has happened before.”

“In March 2025, a superior court judge delivered a ruling and an order holding GUSD accountable for the sexual abuse of an autistic student who was non-verbal but able to communicate to his family in 2015 that he was being beaten, tortured and sexually abused by one of his teachers,” said Mayor Najarian, explaining the process the parents went through over 10 years to get the case to trial, which resulted in a judgment against the school district of $4.1 million. The judge assigned 90% of the blame to the school district and 10% to the teacher.

“That was last March and I was warned that this is a school district issue and the school district will handle it,” he said. “City hall cautioned me against criticizing the school district again and some told me, ‘You saw what they did to you last time when you wanted to be mayor.’ 

“I deeply regret not speaking about this back in March,” he said. “I anticipated that both the administration and the board would address the court’s decision and begin implementing the required reforms. I expected them to inform parents, students and the public about the significant ruling that had just been delivered. 

“And yes, we heard about the sexual abuse incident last week involving autistic students – again by a teacher’s aide. This is not an isolated incident – this is a devastating, highly predictable consequence of inaction, of ignoring warning signs, and of failing to act decisively to safeguard our children, a failing to remedy the failures in the system that the judge pointed out in her ruling.”

The mayor made several specific recommendations. They are to:

1. Fully acknowledge the findings of the April verdict
2. Implement comprehensive reforms to prevent abuse
3. Cooperate with law enforcement and child protective agencies to assure accountability
4. Communicate openly with parents and the community about steps being taken
5. Set up a Glendale hotline directly to the police department for any student, teacher or parent to report concerns directly to ensure they are “no longer ignored by the GUSD”

Councilmember Elen Asatryan added that the letter the school district ultimately sent to district parents was vague and linked to important resources solely in English regardless of the language of the parents.

Councilmember Asatryan also extended a “shout-out to the local students who have been walking out and joining in peaceful protests. High school students organized marches to city hall and I’m very proud of our students. One of the greatest rights we have in this country is the right to protest – I come from a country where my grandparents definitely didn’t have the right to speak their minds, to speak to power in that way. Thanks to the students involved and thanks to the police department for ensuring the safety of our students.”

Councilmember Kassakhian remains hot on the trail of food delivery robots he sees everywhere on the city’s sidewalks.

“I am incredibly frustrated with our slow pace in acting on this,” he said. Assistant City Manager John Takhtalian assured the Council a report on the issue is forthcoming, expected by the end of March.

Additionally, Councilmember Kassakhian wants the city to address concerns about food trucks and sidewalk vendors. In some cases, they have “completely taken over the sidewalks.”

“Some of these are using the buildings in front of which they’re parked as their addresses from which people can come using one of the other delivery services to pick up their food,” he said. “They’re using the address of a physical brick and mortar business that pays property tax and sales tax; they’re using that as their address – I don’t even know if that’s legal – and they set up gas-powered generators and tables and furniture and many of them appear to be in violation of parking regulations I’d certainly be cited for. I’m at my wit’s end.”

Mayor Najarian announced a series of meetings coming up for the public to hear updates on the North Hollywood-Pasadena BRT: a virtual meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 24 from 6-7:30 p.m. and in-person on Monday, March 9 at 6 p.m. in the Fremont Park Community Room. More information including details about the upcoming community meetings can be found at Metro.net/NoHoPasBRT.

Early during Tuesday night’s meeting, the Council recognized February 2026 as Black History Month, “recognizing and honoring the history, culture and achievements of Black Americans whose leadership and service have helped shape the nation. In 2026, this observance marks 100 years since the 1926 national commemoration, offering an opportunity to reflect on the courage and leadership that advanced civil rights and expanded opportunity.”

The Council will not meet next week in honor of President’s Day on Monday. The next meeting of the Glendale City Council is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 6 p.m.