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ARCADIAWEEKLY
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Thursday, february 21 - february 27, 2019
Arcadia City Council Hears Public Concerns Over Historic Preservation In 4-1 vote City Council agreed to not accept the current ordinance
Since 1996
Vol. 23, No. 8
Conditional Approval for Arcadia rEWMP Project Area Susan motander motander@yahoo.com
The reaction to that headline should have been a resounding “What?”. This is an important issue as it may affect your taxes and water rates. But first, you will need a few explanations and definitions. An Enhanced Watershed Management Plan is an EWMP (pronounced E-Wimp – appropriately). An rEWMP is a revised EWMP (pronounced: Are-EWimp). All of this “bureaucratspeak” is the result of the Regional Water Board demanding more stringent cleaning of our local storm water (which you will note in “bureaucrat-speak” is now one word) than any other water board in the state and as far as we know the nation. The first numbers for the projects required by the Water Board were staggering; they were in the billions for the county and the millions for each local community. The amount required for some cities could equal a SEE APPROVAL PAGE 10
Century-Old Arcadian Refuses to Slow Down galen PATTERSON galen.patterson303@gmail.com
Councilman Roger Chandler took some angry digs at local historians such as Carol Libby about the proposed ordinance. Chandler was the sole ‘No’ Vote Tuesday. - Photo by Terry Miller / Beacon Media News
galen PATTERSON galen.patterson303@gmail.com
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any Arcadians voiced their opinions on the matter at the City Council meeting on the evening of Feb. 19. Marcello Vavala, a member of The Los Angeles Conservancy a county-wide non-profit organization focused on educating and promoting historic preservation within the county, told the city that in his professional opinion the proposed ordinance was fair. An example Vavala gave Arcadia Weekly is that the ordinance requires the consent of the homeowner to officially designate the home a historic entity. Vavala says that in other cities in the county the owner does not
need consent but that people can circumvent the owner and apply for historic status anyway. Vavala says the proposed ordinance is a “very balanced ordinance.” Public comments lasted for hours, late into the evening, at 3 to 5 minutes per person. Many people spoke for and against the ordinance. Several speakers seemed legitimately concerned that the passing of the ordinance would take their home-owning rights away from them. Other speakers appeared to think the city would just take their home and land from them. A claim Vavala says is unfounded. The spreading of false information on historic preservation seems to mimic the clandestine tactics used during the recent city official elecSEE HISTORIC PRESERVATION PAGE 10
On a Saturday morning at Salon Votre in Arcadia, a woman walked in to have her hair styled. She moved effortlessly, although careful, around the small salon, lifting her hands to touch her hair, rising from her chair under her own strength and doing all the things healthy and capable humans tend to take for granted. The catch is: this woman is 100 years old. She identifies herself only as Helen. Using her last name she suspects will draw too much unwanted attention. “When I turned 99, nobody said anything,” she jokes. Joking is one of Helen’s strong suits. She laughs that all the “young people” she considers friends are in their 80s, she laughs about her two marriages and divorces, stating that she only gets married every 40 years, SEE 100 YEARS OLD PAGE 11