Monterey Park Press_4/22/2024

Federal judge unseals warrants in case of botched LADWP billing

By City News Service

ALos Angeles federal judge issued a final order Tuesday on an application to unseal 33 FBI search warrants and related documents that detail a probe into alleged unethical and illegal activity at the LA City Attorney’s Office and the Department of Water and Power.

The government’s investigation came in the wake of the DWP’s botched launch of a new billing system in 2013 that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

As a result of the U.S. Attorney’s Office probe, which ended in November, a former high-level advisor to former City Attorney Mike Feuer, an outside attorney hired by Feuer’s office and two top DWP officials pleaded guilty to federal bribery and extortion charges. However, questions remain about the roles other key officials played in the city’s misconduct, including Feuer, according to the consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.

The FBI warrants and other materials were sought in a legal action filed in Los Angeles federal court by Consumer Watchdog and the Los Angeles Times.

Jerry Flanagan, legal directorfor Consumer Watchdog, said the law states the public has a right to such documents when a government criminal investigation has ended.

“The court’s order is a win for all those who believe sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Consumer Watchdog staff attorney Ryan Mellino said. “Unsealing these records sends a message that public officials will not be protected from public scrutiny.”

A request for comment sent to a representative for the City Attorney’s Office was not immediately answered.

“Public confidence in government — which lies at

the core of a well functioning democracy — is shaken, if not shattered, when public officials and those operating on their behalf engage in criminal or unethical conduct,” U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. wrote in his final order Tuesday. “The nature and scope of misconduct in this case, resulting in convictions of high- level public officials at two municipal agencies, raise serious questions about a culture of corruption. These questions warrant public scrutiny to determine the extent to which wrongdoers have been held accountable and the extent to which the affected agencies have been reformed.”

The judge wrote that the “need for scrutiny is only heightened where the corruption threatens the integrity of the judicial system and the safety of this nation’s infrastructure.

Without disclosure of the identities of the public officials and others working for the city, the public would not be able to `properly evaluate the fruits of the

government’s extensive investigation.’”

In a tentative opinion issued before a hearing last Friday, the court denied the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s request to redact the names of city employees and other officials, including private attorneys working on behalf of city. However, the court did not decide the issue of whether statements in an affidavit by FBI Agent Andy Civetti that Feuer lied to the grand jury would be released. The final order makes clear that those statements will be released, but that any references to the substance of grand jury testimony will be redacted consistent with federal rules.

In late 2014, in an attempt to take control of the ever-worsening billing debacle, the City Attorney’s Office hatched a scheme to sue itself through a collusive “white knight” lawsuit, in which the office controlled the litigation nominally brought on behalf of DWP customers against the city. The lawsuit ultimately settled on terms favorable to the city.

According to government documents, following the collusive litigation settlement, an employee of Beverly Hills lawyer Paul Kiesel — who was retained by Feuer to represent the city — threatened to expose the city’s misconduct unless she was paid off, and unnamed “senior members of the City Attorney’s Office” directed the extortion payment to be made in the amount of $800,000, Flanagan said.

Kiesel cooperated with the investigation and was not charged with any wrongdoing.

Lawyers for Consumer Watchdog and the Times argued the public has a strong interest in assessing why prosecutors made the charging decisions they did, particularly where those decisions were made about highly influential and powerful public officials who were not charged, while lower ranking officials were charged, according to Flanagan.

The DWP has estimated that the billing scandal cost the city more than $120 million.

SoCal home sales cool as prices continue to rise

By City News Service

Homesalesdropped inSouthernCalifornia and across the statelastmonth,while prices continued to increase, according to figures released Wednesday by the California Association of Realtors.

Unadjusted raw sales decreased on a year-over-year basis in all major regions except the Central Coast, and sales in Southern California experienced the secondbiggest drop from a year ago, declining 7.8%.

Statewide, existing, singlefamily home sales totaled 267,470 in March on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, down 7.8% from 290,020 in February and down 4.4% from 279,700 a year ago.

The statewide decline followed increases in January and February.

“While home sales lost momentum in March, the housing market remains competitive as we’re seeing the statewide median home price reaching the highest level in seven months, and homes selling quicker than last year,” CAR President Melanie Barker said. “On the supply side, the market continues to improve with an increasing number of properties being listed on the market as more sellers begin to accept the new normal.”

All major regions in the state registered an annual increase in their median price from a year ago, according to CAR. The median price of an existing single-family home

in Southern California jumped 11.1% year-over-year to $850,000, a 3% increase from last month.

The median price in the Los Angeles metro area rose 1.4% from last month to $801,000, a 9% increase from last year at this time.

The median price in Los Angeles County declined by 1.5%, however, dropping from $817,100 in February to $805,100 in March.

Orange County saw its median home price increase 3.7% from February to $1.4 million, 12% higher than last year at this time.

San Mateo County recorded the highest median home price in March at a whopping $2.17 million -- up 12.9% from the $1.922 million in February. Marin County’s median price was second-highest at $1.957 million -- up 21.6% from last month.

Lassen County has the lowest median price in March at $247,000, down 6.1% from February.

In Southern California, the lowest median price was Imperial County’s $349,000, down 1.7% from last month.

The statewide median price recorded a strong yearover-year gain in March, climbing 7.7% to $854,490 -- a 6% increase from last month.

The median number of days it took to sell a California single-family home in March was 19 days, down from 24 days in March 2023.

Photo by Ken Lund / CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED

The Department of Water and Power building in downtown Los Angeles. | Photo courtesy of Neon Tommy/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

First girder of wildlife crossing project installed near Agoura Hills

By City News Service

Constructioncrews successfully installed the first girder and initial level of a wildlife crossing over the Ventura (101) Freeway in the Liberty Canyon area near Agoura Hills, officials announced Wednesday.

Construction of the crossing, in which crews will install massive concrete beams over the roadway, will prompt overnight freeway closures for the next several weeks.

When completed, the crossing will be the largest of its kind in the world, a first in California, and a model for urban wildlife conservation, wildlife advocates said.

“Watching the first horizontal girder placed over the freeway tonight, surrounded by our `championship team’ of partners who helped make the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing a reality, was cathartic,” Beth Pratt, California regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement.

“We all cheered when

the crane lowered the first concrete beam across the freeway, as we truly saw the bridge starting to take shape. This structure is a testament to us all wanting a future for wildlife and mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains.”

The girder installation process began Tuesday at 11 p.m. and required the overnight closure of all southbound lanes on the Ventura Freeway between Chesebro and Liberty Canyon roads in Agoura Hills. Closures will take place Monday through Friday -- for five hours every night -- through the duration of the girder placement process. Only one direction of the freeway will be completely closed at a time. All lanes in the opposite direction will remain open for traffic.

The process of installing all the girders -- 82 in total -- across all 10 freeway lanes is expected to take from 30 to 45 days to complete.

The large concrete beams, or girders, constitute the first level of the wildlife

crossing’s span across one of the nation’s busiest freeways. The girders that will be installed over the southbound lanes are each more than 93- feet long and weigh over 126 tons. Each girder that will be placed over the northbound lanes is 103-feet long and weighs 140 tons.

For context, the weight of just one girder is equivalent to the weight of more than 14 African elephants, experts said.

Caltrans officials said motorists who need to traverse the area during the closure hours should consider using the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway as an alternate between state Route 23 and the San Diego (405) Freeway. More localized detours on area streets will also be in place.

Construction on the wildlife crossing began in 2022, and is expected to be completed by late 2025 or early 2026.

The fully landscaped crossing is designed to provide a connection

between the small population of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains and the larger and genetically diverse populations to the north. The crossing will be the largest of its type in the nation, officials said.

Decades of road construction and development have

been deadly for animals trying to cross the area’s freeways, while creating islands of habitat that have genetically isolated wildlife ranging from bobcats to birds and lizards.

Wildlife advocates hope the crossing can save the threatened local popula-

tion of mountain lions from extinction, which could become inevitable if lions continue a historic pattern of inbreeding due to the limited numbers of cats in the area. More information about the project is available at www.101wildlifecrossing. org.

Anaheim City Council approves Disneyland expansion plan

By City News Service

After an hours-long meeting, the Anaheim City Council early Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a major Disneyland expansion project.

The Disneyland Forward project is meant to expand development and add hotel rooms to the theme park by utilizing about 57 acres of parking and unused land. The plan is essentially a shuffling around of previously approved zoning to allow for more attractions, hotel rooms and other entertainment and attractions without expanding the theme park.

Part of the plan involves using land set aside for hotel room development for the theme park.

The $1.9 billion expansion plan was approved unanimously early Wednesday morning following an eight-hour public hearing that began Tuesday night.

The proposal will return for a final City Council vote on May 7 and would be subject to land-use modifications to pave the way for the Disneyland Forward project to be begin 30 days later.

“When Disneyland

grows, Anaheim thrives,” Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said in a statement. “Last night’s vote to approve the DisneylandForward Plan will benefit Anaheim for decades to come. The plan will provide important funding to the City of Anaheim to build affordable housing, enhance parks, and improve infrastructure.”

Aitken also said the project will create thousands of new jobs and allow Disney to further improve their guest experience.

“Our city has a special and unique relationship with the Disneyland Resort, which began in the 1950s and continues to this day. Disney’s commitment to partner with Anaheim and invest billions of dollars is a win for our community,” Aitken said.

During the public hearing, Anaheim residents, Disneyland cast members, and officials from nearby cities spoke about the advantages and problems of the plan.

Part of the proposal calls for Disney to pay $40 million to buy Magic Way, Hotel Way and a part of Clementine Street from the city, roadways

around Disneyland.

“The city is transferring responsibility for Magic Way because the road overwhelmingly serves the Disneyland Hotel, Disney employee parking and the south end of the Pixar Pals Parking Structure,” according to a city statement.

Disney officials want to build new theme park attractions next to hotels west of the theme park and Disney California Adventure, and to add entertainment, shopping, restaurants and theme park attractions in what’s now known as the Toy Story parking lot.

The development is expected to be done over the next 40 years. Disney has pledged a minimum $1.9 billion investment in the theme park and its retail businesses within 10 years.

The project also includes $30 million from the company for affordable housing within five years, $8 million for parks in the city in the first year, $40 million from Disney for street and transportation upgrades, and $10 million for sewer improvements along Katella Avenue.

The project would increase zoning for theme park attractions, hotels, retail and dining from 292 acres to 389 acres. Theme park attractions would be added to the Pixar Place Hotel property and on part of the Toy Story parking lot. New parking would be added in an area east of Harbor Boulevard along Machester Avenue.

There would also be changes in some of the street and roads around the theme park. For instance, a westbound left turn lane would be added at Harbor Boule-

vard and Disney Way, and northbound and southbound left turn lanes at Harbor Boulevard and Orangewood Avenue.

“Since the project would allow potential theme park uses closer to public streets and residential areas, the amended specific plan would require new criteria called 360-Degree Architectural Treatment for new theme park uses visible from the public right-ofway or abutting residential zones, which would include enhanced architectural treatments at varying

heights while utilizing new and existing wall and landscape buffers,” city officials said in a staff report for the city council.

The project “would provide more flexibility to develop a wider range of attractions, hotel accommodations, restaurants and shopping opportunities, which would support the long-term growth of the Disneyland Resort and enhance the success and vitality of the Anaheim Resort,” officials said in a staff recommendation of the plan.

First girder of a wildlife crossing was installed over the 101 Freeway in the Liberty Canyon area near Agoura Hills. | Photo courtesy of Caltrans District 7

| Rendering courtesy of City of Anaheim

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1 in 4 Americans are physically inactive — here’s how that impacts you as you age

By Ali Hickerson, Stacker

In 2024, 48% of American adults made a New Year’s resolution to improve their fitness, according to a Forbes Health/OnePoll survey. It’s a good goal — because Americans aren’t doing it nearly enough.

Nearly 1 in 4 American adults are not getting the suggested two days of muscle training and 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends. According to a study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, part of the problem could be that only 1 in 10 adults know how much and what kinds of exercise they should be getting to stave off disease and other health ailments.

to a study in The American Journal of Medicine, despite continued efforts to improve fitness at individual and population levels.

Physical inactivity isn’t just an American issue nor limited to the individual. Government policies can help change the infrastructure, environments and resources that support a more active population. However, a World Health Organization report published in 2022 found in a study of 194 countries that progress toward policies that aimed to increase physical activity is slow. Over a quarter of created national policies were not funded or implemented.

Variables like socioeconomic status, regionality, ethnic backgrounds, and

Guidelines by the CDC recommend “regular physical activity,” encompassing more than just fitness and exercise. It also includes sports and other physical activities that move your body and expend energy. Physical activity can even include active transportation like walking to work or gardening.

Routine physical activity has more advantages for your health and well-being than just preventing weight gain. Regular movement makes your bones stronger and your cognitive abilities sharper, helps you sleep more soundly and feel less anxious and can reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer.

Northwell Health partnered with Stacker to analyze CDC data about Americans’ physical activity levels and how they vary by age.

Americans are becoming less active

Over the past decade, the prevalence of physical inactivity has remained “unacceptably high,” according

data also shows that low physical activity costs the American health care system $117 billion annually.

A 2019 Global Wellness Institute report found that Americans rank No. 1 for how much consumers spend on physical activity, with $264 billion annually on technology, equipment, and apparel. The same report ranks the United States #20 globally for “sports participation,” measuring people participating in at least one physical activity per month.

education correlate with differences in physical inactivity. Technology and how our “built environments” are structured for walkability and safety all play a part in why Americans don’t move as much as they should — in addition to more personalized reasons, like a lack of time, energy, and motivation and fear of injury.

Physical activity doesn’t just prevent chronic conditions; it can help manage them too. Still, like the rest of American adults, people with chronic conditions and disabilities also exercise at lower levels than recommended.

CDC data shows that physical activity levels in adults have dropped and flatlined since 2020 without continued improvement for over a decade. With just an additional 10 minutes of physical activity a day, it is estimated that 110,000 deaths of middle-aged and older adults could be prevented annually, according to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Fittingly, CDC

So, have Americans always been this inactive? A 2021 Current Biology study comparing 19th-century to 21st-century Americans found that Americans exercise 27 fewer minutes now.

How age plays a role

According to the CDC, the pattern of inactivity begins early in Americans’ lives, with 77% of high school students not getting enough aerobic physical activity.

Evidence shows that moving your body earlier in life has a positive yet small effect on healthy aging down the road. For bone density, building strength in our younger years matters. The body keeps bones strong by replacing “old bones” with new tissue — the rate of which can slow with exercise — but production of the new tissue ends around age 30.

“Exercise is the best defense and repair strategy that we have to counter different drivers of aging,” Nathan LeBrasseur, professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic, told Time magazine. However, only

moderate and vigorous physical activity makes a difference in the health of older people.

In addition to the exercise recommendations for adults, people 65 and older should do activities that improve balance.

According to CDC data, American adults move less as they age. Still, according to CDC data, there’s a more significant drop in physical activity for people aged 65 and older than those aged 55-64. A survey of researchers at the University of Michigan found that COVID-19 restrictions hurt older adults’ physical functioning and health outcomes after falling. Lead researcher Geoffrey Hoffman told the New York Times that the changes in activity levels for this community during the pandemic led to worsened physical functioning, which corresponded with increased falls and fears of falling.

With the median age of the U.S. population higher than ever before, paired with high levels of inactivity, there will be a continued strain on the health system. The CDC’s comprehensive Active People, Healthy Nation initiative aims to motivate 27 million Americans to become more physically active by 2027.

Data Work by Elena Cox. Story editing by Shannon Luders-Manuel. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Ania Antecka.

This story originally appeared on Northwell Health and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio. The article was copy edited from its original version. Republished pursuant to a

license.

| Image courtesy of Northwell Health/Stacker

| Image courtesy of Northwell Health/Stacker

Critically endangered Mojave tortoises emerge from winter shelter

By City News Service

Seventyendangered

Mojave desert tortoises are adjusting to their new home Wednesday in their native habitat on Edwards Air Force Base, an effort headed by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens.

The tortoises emerged from their winter burrows Monday following the transfer of the animals as part of a collaborative effort to increase the species’ survival rate. Tortoises enter brumation during the winter, a state of deep sleep specific to reptiles, the organizations wrote in a report.

The 70 reptiles are the first to be reintroduced into the wild as a result of a partnership between San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, Edwards Air Force Base, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.

According to the organizations, within 24 hours of reentering their native habitat, the tortoises were exhibiting positive natural behaviors by constructing

new burrows or modifying existing ones for shelter.

“We’ve worked so hard to get here, and we’ve been through so much together,” said Melissa Merrick, associate director of recovery ecology at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “We’ve had to re-strategize, switch plans, react and adapt to so many emerging situations, and we’ve all done it successfully to get to this point.

“The second group of young headstart tortoises just arrived from The Living Desert and will spend the next six months with us before joining their predecessors in the wild,” Merrick said. “It’s an exciting time for the program.”

Scientists track eggcarrying tortoises, monitor the adult females as they lay eggs in human care and rear the hatchlings for one to two years. The hatchlings are reared indoors at The Living Desert for six months, and then in a protected outdoor environment at Edwards Air Force Base.

The protection is needed for the species, as several

years ago San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance scientists were excavating nests in the middle of the night under emergency circumstances due to a dangerous heat wave, and wildlife care staff at The Living Desert were preparing to receive the tortoises a month early and care for tortoises still in varying stages of hatching.

According to the SDZWA, in September 2023, the nests of a second cohort -- laid in protected outdoor habitats at Edwards Air Force Base -were again excavated under emergency circumstances. Predatory ants and fly larvae attacked hatchling tortoises as they emerged from their shells. It is believed the historic arrival of Hurricane Hilary created extra-moist conditions, leading to a breeding ground for these insects.

The surviving tortoises received veterinary care at The Living Desert. This month, they will be transferred to the outdoor headstart habitats at Edwards Air Force Base managed by San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, where they will spend the

next six months. At one year of age, they will be reintroduced into their native habitat.

“Indoor rearing at The Living Desert enables the tortoises to grow to three to five times the size they would at this stage in their native habitat, making them less vulnerable to predation,” a report from the

organizations reads. “Once common throughout the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of California, Nevada and Arizona, desert tortoise populations have declined by an estimated 90% in the last 20 years.”

California’s Mojave desert tortoise faces threats including habitat loss and fragmentation, disease, human-subsi-

dized predators and climate change. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s evaluation of population trends from 2018 indicates the species is on a path to extinction under current conditions.

However, with continued successful efforts to address the threats they face, there is hope this trend can be reversed, the authors write.

Desert tortoises. | Photo courtesy of SDZWA

Blinken is sitting on staff recommendations to sanction Israeli military units inked to killings or rapes

This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

A special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Antony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses.

But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the face of growing international criticism of the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza, according to current and former State Department officials.

The incidents under review mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. They include reports of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli Border Police; an incident in which a battalion gagged, handcuffed and left an elderly Palestinian American man for dead; and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Recommendations for action against Israeli units were sent to Blinken in December, according to one person familiar with the memo. “They’ve been sitting in his briefcase since then,” another official said.

A State Department spokesperson told ProPublica the agency takes its commitment to uphold U.S. human rights laws seriously. “This process is one that demands a careful and full review,” the spokesperson said, “and the department undergoes a fact-specific investigation applying the same standards and procedures regardless of the country in question.”

The revelations about Blinken’s failure to act on the recommendations come at a delicate moment in U.S.Israel relations. Six months into its war against Hamas, whose militants massacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 more on Oct. 7, the Israeli military has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, according to local authorities. Recently, President Joe Biden has signaled increased frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the widespread civilian casualties.

Multiple State Department officials who have worked on Israeli relations said that Blinken’s inaction has undermined Biden’s public criticism, sending a message to the Israelis that the administration was not willing to take serious steps.

The recommendations came from a special committee of State Department officials known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum. The panel, made up of Middle East and human rights experts, is named for former Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chief author of 1997 laws that requires the U.S. to cut off assistance to any foreign military or law enforcement units — from battalions of soldiers to police stations — that are credibly accused of flagrant human rights violations.

The Guardian reported this year that the State Department was reviewing several of the incidents but had not imposed sanctions because the U.S. government treats Israel with unusual deference. Officials told ProPublica that the panel ultimately recommended that

By Brett Murphy, ProPublica

the secretary of state take action.

This story is drawn from interviews with present and former State Department officials as well as government documents and emails obtained by ProPublica. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.

The Israeli government did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the years, hundreds of foreign units, including from Mexico, Colombia and Cambodia, have been blocked from receiving any new aid. Officials say enforcing the Leahy Laws can be a strong deterrent against human rights abuses.

Human rights organizations tracking Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks have collected eyewitness testimony and videos posted by Israeli soldiers that point to widespread abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.

“If we had been applying Leahy effectively in Israel like we do in other countries, maybe you wouldn’t have the IDF filming TikToks of their war crimes now because we have contributed to a culture of impunity,” said Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and a member of the vetting forum.

Paul resigned in protest shortly after Israel began its bombing campaign of Gaza in October.

The Leahy Laws apply to countries that receive American-funded training or arms. In the decades after the passage of those laws, the State Department, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, followed a de facto policy of exempting billions of dollars of foreign military financing to Israel from their strictures, according to multiple experts on the region.

In 2020, Leahy and others in Congress passed a law to tighten the oversight. The State Department set up the vetting forum to identify Israeli security force units that shouldn’t be receiving American assistance. Until now, it has been paralyzed by its bureaucracy, failing to fulfill the hopes of its sponsors.

Critics have long assailed what they view as Israel’s special treatment. Incidents that would have disqualified units in other countries did not have the same result in Israel, according to Charles Blaha, the former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights and a former participant in the Israeli vetting forum. “There is no political will,” he said.

Typically, the reports of wrongdoing come from nongovernment organizations like Human Rights Watch or from press accounts. The State Department officials determining whether to recommend sanctions generally do not draw on the vast array of classified material gathered by America’s intelligence agencies.

Actions against an Israeli unit are subject to additional layers of scrutiny. The forum is required to consult the government of Israel. Then, if the forum agrees that there is credible evidence of a human rights violation, the issue goes to more senior officials, including some of the department’s top diplomats who oversee the Middle East and arms transfers. Then the recommendations can be sent to the secretary of state for final approval, either with consensus or as split decisions.

Even if Blinken were to approve the sanctions, officials said, Israel could blunt their impact. One approach would be for the country to buy American arms with its own funds and give them to the units that had been sanctioned. Officials said the symbolism of calling out Israeli units for misconduct would nonetheless be potent, marking a sign of disapproval of the civilian toll the war is taking.

Since it was formed in 2020, the forum has reviewed reports of multiple cases of rape and extrajudicial killings, according to the documents ProPublica obtained. Those cases also included several incidents where teenagers were reportedly beaten in custody before being released without charges. The State Department records obtained by ProPublica do not clearly

indicate which cases the experts ultimately recommended for sanctions, and several have been tabled pending more information from the Israelis.

Israel generally argues it has addressed allegations of misconduct and human rights abuses through its own military discipline and legal systems. In some of the cases, the forum was satisfied that Israel had taken serious steps to punish the perpetrators.

But officials agreed on a number of human rights violations, including some that the Israeli government had not appeared to adequately address.

Among the allegations reviewed by the committee was the January 2021 arrest of a 15-year old boy by Israeli Border Police. The teen was held for five days at the Al-Mascobiyya detention center on charges that he had thrown stones and Molotov cocktails at security forces. Citing an allegation shared by a Palestinian child welfare nonprofit, forum officials said there was credible information the teen had been forced to confess after he was “subjected to both physical and sexual torture, including rape by an object.”

Two days after the State Department asked the Israeli government for information about what steps it had taken to hold the perpetrators accountable, Israeli police raided the nonprofit that had originally shared the allegation and later designated it a terrorist organization. The Israelis told State Department officials they had found no evidence of sexual assault or torture but reprimanded one of the teen’s interrogators for kicking a chair.

Republished with Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken delivers remarks Friday, Jan. 13, 2023. | Photo by NASA/Aubrey Gemignani CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED

The flooding will come ‘no matter what’

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Another great American migrationisnow underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes — on the shores of its sinking bayous and on the eroding bluffs of its coastal defenses — populations are already in disarray.

A couple of miles west of downtown Slidell, Louisiana, and just upstream from the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain — the 40-by-24-mile-wide brackish estuary separating what is now the mainland from New Orleans — a five-room shotgun house sits on a plot of marshy lawn near the edge of Liberty Bayou. Colette Pichon Battle’s mother had been born in that house. Colette, brighteyed and ambitious, devoutly Catholic, a force on the volleyball court, was raised in the house until the day she left for college. The family’s very identity had grown from the waters of the marsh around it. From a humble rectangle of wood, framed onto brick stanchions that kept it hovering several feet above the ground, shaded by the long beards of Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of towering oaks and a hardy pine, a family was born. Its Creole heritage near the acre of low-lying land goes deeper than the trees, deeper than the United States as a nation, to around 1770. Those roots withstood the tests of centuries: slavery, war and more than their share of storms.

Then, Hurricane Katrina arrived. Colette was in her law office in Washington, D.C., in 2005 when she saw a graphic weather forecast on the television screen: a swirling monster of a Category 5 storm, broader than anything she’d ever seen before, was headed straight for her family home. She rushed into a conference room and called her mother.

On the bayou, people don’t run from storms. They cope with a familiar nuisance the way Minnesotans cope with the snow. For all Colette’s life, the hurricanes that routinely swept Louisiana were more cause for bonding than for fear — families would gather in one place, bringing the food that had to be eaten before the power went down, and they’d barbecue it and talk and share stories while the storm passed overhead. That the water would sometimes come wasn’t a surprise; it was why the home was elevated.

But time and warming and the erosion of a protective coastline had already changed the nature of the storms. And Katrina looked different. “I need you to get out of there,” Colette told her mom.

Mary Pichon Battle, a vibrant 60-year-old schoolteacher, had raised her children to travel the world. She was a living tie to Liberty Bayou’s rich history, one of the last remaining people there still fluent in the Creole language. And she’d clung to that home, even with the boot of Louisiana on her back, throughout the Civil Rights era, all while raising Colette, teaching her French and Creole, and then sending her off to Kenyon College in Ohio, and to law school at Southern University in Baton Rouge. Liberty Bayou wasn’t just an asset. It was her history, her identity. She saw no reason to leave. Colette, though, acting on instinct more than habit, was insistent. Mary would drive to her brother’s house in Breaux Bridge, just a few hours away. It would only be for a couple of days. Then she’d be back.

All around, people were taking flight. The displaced from New Orleans and the coastlines headed north toward higher ground, gathering the people of Slidell along with them. When the storm hit, it pushed a surge of waters across the lake onto its north shore. The shotgun house filled steadily, the water pushing Mary’s cherished paintings of Jesus off their hooks and setting them afloat, along with the contents of boxes of family photographs — prints of Colette and her twin brother as babies; photos of her grandmother, a beauty, before she used a wheelchair. All were carried toward the rafters, and lost, as the peak of the house’s tin roof disappeared. Slidell was inundated by tidal surges more than 20 feet deep. The water washed through buildings downtown at head height, transforming the entirety of the flat, low-lying landscape into a sea pocked only by occasional trees and obstacles jutting from the water. By the time those surging waters sloshed back into the lake, flowing south again to overcome the levees around New Orleans, the community of Liberty Bayou, for the most part, had already been destroyed. Mary Pichon Battle, who’d packed just three days’ worth of clothes and left a lifetime’s worth of belongings, had little to come home to. The house

was unlivable. “It was in the water, in the ocean,” Colette recounted. “The tidal surge took it.” And much of Slidell had gone with it.

As tens of thousands of people continued to leave the wreckage of Louisiana in the weeks and months following the storm — and Mary remained a refugee — Colette moved back home. Fifteen generations on the bayou, a legacy in jeopardy, exerted a gravitational pull she could not resist. The devastation spoke to her. The rebuilding beckoned. She thought about the survivors.

“There are these trees here,” she says, describing the deeply rooted, majestic oaks that dot the landscape of southern Louisiana and the Mississippi coast. The tidal surge snapped the pines like Pixy Stix. The briny ocean water turned grasses brown and dead, killing animals and fish both, along with flowers and shrubs. “Not everything made it,” she said, “but these trees, these oaks, they made it. And they stood.”

Colette knew that her home might never be rebuilt. She knew her mother might never come back. But she tells the story, grasping for an explanation for why she herself returned, trying to find words that could describe the role she felt suddenly compelled to fulfill. “And I feel more like that, right?” she says, comparing herself to the aged oaks. “I feel like that. I’m watching other trees go down, I’m watching changes, but I’ve got the roots that are strong enough to hold.”

And so Colette became the resistance, pushing back against all the forces arrayed against her: the storm after the storm. She thought, at the time, she’d join a great healing, the rebuilding that would bring her mother home and the restoration of all the ties that gave life there meaning. She would bring the whole Bayou home. She began to talk about the risks in terms that the bayou communities around her could not recognize. She warned that if they failed to rebuild, to be resilient, the only option would be to migrate away from Louisiana’s southern coast — that while the recovery from the storm looked bleak, the alternative could be far worse. “People thought we were crazy,” she says, “but that’s how it begins.”

People have always moved as their environment has changed. But today, the climate is warming faster, and

the population is larger, than at any point in history.

As the U.S. gets hotter, its coastal waters rise higher, its wildfires burn larger and its droughts last longer, the notion that humankind can triumph over nature is fading, and with it, slowly, goes the belief that self-determination and personal preference can be the driving factors in choosing where to live. Scientific modeling of these pressures suggest a sweeping change is coming in the shape and location of communities across America, a change that promises to transform the country’s politics, culture and economy.

It has already begun. More Americans are displaced by catastrophic climate-changedriven storms and floods and fires every year. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the global nongovernmental organization researchers rely on to measure the number of people forcibly cast out of their homes by natural disasters, counted very few displaced Americans in 2009, 2010 and 2011, years in which few natural disasters struck the United States. But by 2016 the numbers had begun to surge, with between 1 million and 1.7 million newly displaced people annually. The disasters and heat waves each year have become legion. But the statistics show the human side of what has appeared to be a turning point in both the severity and frequency of wildfires and hurricanes. As the number of displaced people continues to grow, an ever-larger portion of those affected will make their moves permanent, migrating to safer ground or supportive communities. They will do so either because a singular disaster like the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California — or Hurricane Harvey, which struck the Texas and Louisiana coasts — is so destructive it forces them to, or because the

subtler “slow onset” change in their surroundings gradually grows so intolerable, uncomfortable or inconvenient that they make the decision to leave, proactively, by choice. In a 2021 study published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers found that 57% of the Americans they surveyed believed that changes in their climate would push them to consider a move sometime in the next decade.

Also in 2021, the national real estate firm Redfin conducted a similar nationwide survey, finding that nearly half of Americans who planned to move that year said that climate risks were already driving their decisions. Some 52% of people moving from the West said that rising and extreme heat was a factor, and 48% of respondents moving from the Northeast pointed to sea level rise as their predominant threat. Roughly one in four Americans surveyed told Redfin they would no longer consider a move to a region facing extreme heat, no matter how much more affordable that location was. And nearly one-third of people said that “there was no price at which” they would consider buying a home in a coastal region affected by rising seas. When Redfin broadened its survey to include more than a thousand people who had not yet decided to move, a whopping 75% of them said that they would think twice before buying a home in a place facing rising heat or other climate risks.

Global migration experts say that what is happening in Louisiana is a textbook case of how climate-driven migration begins: First, people resist their new reality. Second, they make modest, incremental adjustments to where they live. Slidell, after all, is still within commuting distance of friends and jobs in St. Bernard Parish to the south. Third, they climb the ladder toward

a safer place, rest on a rung for a while, and then continue on, only to be replaced by others worse off than they are, climbing up behind them.

What Colette hoped to avoid was the situation unfolding to her south, in the small Indigenous community of Isle de Jean Charles. There, Biloxi, Chitimacha and Choctaw people were clinging to an exposed tendril of Louisiana’s subsiding land. The Choctaw people had escaped to the south in the first half of the 19th century, finding refuge in the rural wild marshes of the uninhabited coast as white Americans pursued a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing that drove the rest of the tribe — and tens of thousands of others — west on the Trail of Tears. Nearly 200 years later, the descendants of those exiles described a land where horses and cattle roamed across solid earth and their grandfathers slung freshwater bass and catfish out of Lake Tambour. The area now referred to as the Isle covered 22,000 acres.

But then the waters began to rise. Levees built along the Mississippi blocked the natural flow of sediment to replenish the marsh soils, while the oil companies dug thousands of miles of canals. The canals allowed salt water to overcome freshwater marshes, choking off plant life that also nourished the delicate ecosystem. It killed the wetlands and led the land to subside and erode. All the while, the climate got hotter, and the water levels of the Gulf of Mexico rose, doubling the effect of the change. Lake Tambour became a map label in an open sea of salt water. Today, 98% of the Isle’s land is gone.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to build a 72-mile system of levees, dams and locks to protect the

Older homes on Main Street Ferndale, California. | Photo by Ellin Beltz CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED

southern Louisiana coast in the early 2000s, it decided it was too expensive to include Isle de Jean Charles, and so it cut the small Indigenous community of around 325 people out of the protection zone. Isle de Jean Charles was forsaken as irredeemable, counted among the first sacrifices of sovereign land that the U.S. government would make to climate change. And ever since the Corps’ decision, the people living there have been forced to consider where they’ll go when they lose their land entirely. By the time of Katrina, they had started to negotiate a way out — a total and complete retreat. It seemed likely that a community that had held together for hundreds of years would be scattered on the wind. Their hope was that if they fled all at once, they could move together. Perhaps the fabric of community and spiritual support, and the legacy of culture and heritage, could be preserved. It just might have to be moved somewhere else, though.

Colette Pichon Battle watched that painful progression to her south and wanted nothing of it. Her heart ached at the injustice she observed there, where an Indigenous tribal community could not rally the same protections from their representatives in the towering capitol buildings in Baton Rouge and Washington as the wealthier, white towns around them, and where they were left to fend for themselves against the consequences of an upheaval they did not cause.

In her town, the rebuilding process unfolded slowly. The displaced, she said, returned on weekends, driving determinedly from Atlanta or Dallas to swing hammers and cart off debris. Mary Pichon Battle, who had moved to join family in Dallas, visited once in a while, too. But when she came, little was familiar. St. Genevieve’s, the Catholic church with its small cupola sitting on an idyllic grassy shoreline on the edge of the bayou, had collapsed into a heap of broken red brick. Never mind that right up until the storm the congregants sat segregated, with Slidell’s white residents on one side and its Creole parishioners on the other. To Mary it represented home and God, so she joined makeshift prayer sessions on the heavily damaged church grounds, gathering in the shade of a majestic oak tree. Colette and her mother both thought only about the day the homecoming could be permanent.

But a tree on uneven ground under the hot Louisiana sun was no match for Mary’s ever-more frail and

tired body — even if it did offer a reunion of brothers and neighbors. The discomfort began to overshadow the joy. In town, the visits grew demoralizing and progress less and less visible. Abandonment began to happen quietly.

“At first, after the storm, it’s volunteers pulling out trash,” says Colette, about all the work the community did in the months after the disaster.

“Then, it’s not destruction, but the aftermath of destruction.” Streets and yards get cleaned up, but homes are not yet rebuilt and people still do not live there.

The faces in the grocery store remain unfamiliar, the fence-line conversations with neighbors infrequent, the fence lines themselves overgrown with vines because there is no one there to tend them. This stage, the reconstruction stage, demands that people dig deep into their pockets and savings — often savings they do not have. Each visit back to Slidell becomes a reminder of the burden and the stress. Eventually, the space between the trips got longer, and more painful. The fights with the government and insurers for payment became more desperate, and less successful and more exhausting. The applications for federal and state aid more futile, and less fair.

The years passed, and suddenly it was a decade since the storm. Eventually, people gave up. So began another stage of migration, not the stage in which people flee, but the one in which they decide never to come home. In Slidell, the periodic visits were saved for special occasions, crawfish boils, communions and funerals. Then, even those slowed. “You realize they got their voting card in a different city … or it just became easier to go to church at your kids’ home in Atlanta or wherever,” Colette says. “Your community is now dispersed across the U.S., and the thing that kept us together was proximity and seeing each other all the time. And so eventually, you lose the culture.” Her mother, Mary, was never to return home. Slidell’s Creole existence — the language — slipped away with her. She had graduated from “climate displaced” to “climate migrant.”

That is not to say that Slidell, though, shriveled up and died, the way Isle de Jean Charles was dying. Viewed through the lens of climate migration, Slidell, and all of St. Tammany Parish around it, was a confounding place. Because even as those who were displaced found it unlivable, others found it irresistibly inviting. The dramatic change facing southern Louisiana was relative — better for

Flooding

some than where they began, worse for others for the fragility it brought. Though Slidell’s loss was devastating for Colette and the long-standing community she’d been raised in, the small city seemed like refuge to people coming from farther south. And so it became a stopping point for climate evacuees fleeing from other, even more vulnerable places. Even today in Slidell, people can’t decide if they are coming or going. The small city is strangely booming.

There are some 60 miles still between Slidell and the actual coast of the state of Louisiana. In late 2022, I drove east on State Route 90 north of Houma, then south along vanishing branches of land until I reached what felt like the end of the earth. Billboards advertised Hurricaneaid.com, and in places huge trees lay lodged against the broken walls they’d fallen on during Ida a year earlier. The roofs of many houses still had gaping holes, all signs that people here were unable to recover from one storm before the next one hit.

Soon enough, though, it’s not the dilapidation, but the water that commands my attention. It is suddenly everywhere. Just as when you’re standing on a broad, flat beach while the tide comes in, you almost don’t notice the loss of land until it is already gone. Lawns fade into water, which looks swollen and rises right to the joists of the bridges that connect each driveway to the main road. The farther south I go, the closer the water comes to the pavement, until it is but an inch or two shy and in places spills out over it. More and more homes here, entering the towns of Montegut and then Pointeaux-Chenes, sit destroyed from earlier storms, and there are fewer signs of rebuilding, more indications of surrender. Boats sit dry and askew on their hulls in driveways. I pass what looks like a small orange spaceship — a flying saucer of metal with sealed portal windows like a submarine. It is an escape pod, likely washed ashore from one of the large oil platforms in the Gulf. And there is a sense that here, too,

people will one day need it. Then the road ends. It had to end. I bumped up over a levee and passed through an enormous steel floodgate, 15 feet high, at least 5 feet thick, built in 2017 as a part of the larger coastal hurricane protection system that is the state’s last defense. On the other side, the expansive, sunny sky drops straight to the water, which, though calm and at low tide, now brims over the top of the road and into a parking lot. On this day, the lot is full of pickup trucks and boat trailers belonging to people who drove here, to the end of the road, for a day of fishing. In the distance, the scraggly skeletons of tall, once-majestic trees reach up out of the cordgrass, a reminder that not long ago this wasn’t marshland at all. To the right, across a canal and outside the protection zone of the levee, I can see Isle de Jean Charles. A sign on the side of the marina building with half its roof torn off reads, “Bayou Living. Kick back and relax.”

In the 18 years since Katrina, Louisiana’s southernmost territories had started to hollow out, steadily accelerating their quiet migration northward as Louisianans fled their coast. It is, indeed, the next great migration already well underway. In St. Bernard Parish, the thin escarpment of delicate soil still extending east from downtown New Orleans and the levees of the Mississippi River, the population has decreased by 39%. The houses that remain tower above the land, having been raised on to stilts 10 feet — even 25 feet — into the sky. They indicate that the people who remain are committed to live on land they know is disappearing, and that they will stay there, for a while longer anyway, content to treat their homes like islands.

In Orleans Parish, just a few miles south of Slidell across the Interstate 10 bridge, there are 17% fewer residents today than in 2005. In New Orleans itself, where more than two-thirds of the city’s residents left during Hurricane Katrina, the population still hasn’t recovered. Katrina, it turns out, wasn’t a

singular anomalous crisis. It was the beginning of a new era in which the reality of the storms and coastal surges was plain to see and looked nothing like the past. People began to realize that adaptation was less of an option than it used to be. Many simply had to leave. Almost every parish closest to the coast — parishes that have been protected by seawalls and levees, or whose residents have taken advantage of decades of subsidized coastal insurance and federal flood insurance programs incentivizing people to stay and rebuild — has been fast losing population despite those efforts. In those places all the legal mechanisms and incentives that for decades blinded society to the real costs of climate change are beginning to crumble as the true scale of change looms on the horizon.

And yet the population of St. Tammany Parish, where Slidell and Liberty Bayou are, has grown by 40%. People flee. And others arrive. Slidell has become the odd epicenter of America’s new era of climate migration. In 2012, a new seawall was built around the inner core of Slidell, and thousands of new homes were erected across bulldozed spits of marshland infill. Families leaving the parishes farther south stopped here. The price of homes has skyrocketed, driving gentrification that makes it even more difficult for poorer, long-standing residents to rebuild or to find a new home. Traffic is a growing concern; when a single dry causeway is all that connects islands, a car accident can grind life to a standstill. And state and local officials here have adopted language used by migration experts around the world, calling Slidell a “receiver community,” as refugees from the land south of it take new homes.

It all goes to show that there will be no clear-cut boundaries or perfect tipping points for climate and migration. Change, here, means two steps forward and one back, as a mélange of competing and conflicting interests all swirl in cycles of short-term opportunities that may later recede to reveal the persistence of long-term trends. A place can grow even as its core shrivels. A climate migration event, as it begins, comes into focus not as a sharply defined arrow pointing north, but as a hodgepodge of conflicting signals. It suggests that even as the nation’s population shifts north — which on balance it inevitably will — and receiving communities must prepare for mass migration, a part of this evolution will be the story of those who remain in place. And it billboards the fact that

new policies and leadership will be demanded by these circumstances, not just to help growing places plan for their future, but to soften the landing of the people left behind.

It’s a strange phenomenon to see residents from Louisiana’s southern coast taking refuge in Slidell, because Slidell isn’t exactly high ground. Much of the city is merely 13 feet above sea level. Parts of it, including the bayou where Colette’s family home is, are significantly lower. So when the people in St. Tammany Parish compete for access to this place and approve building permits for a thousand homes on spits of land with only gabion walls — structures of wire filled with stone — to protect them against the waves of Lake Pontchartrain, what they are really fighting for are the slivers of slightly higher ground, the marginal leftovers, so to speak, between New Orleans to the south and Baton Rouge to the west. Here, the lenders will still lend and the insurers will still engage.

But for how long? Eventually, the lands encircling Slidell are going to be worse off than they are today, and the people moving there may well have no choice but to move on again. In 50 years, according to St. Tammany Parish’s own planning documents, the region encircling Slidell could often be under 6 to 15 feet of water, except for the core protected by a levee. And yet they build anyway.

Several years after Katrina, Colette sat in a community auditorium to hear a team of professors describe the coming sea level changes to the people who lived in the parish. The professors showed a series of time-lapse satellite images of a receding and flooded shoreline. It was something already wellknown to researchers, but this was the first time Colette recalls it being shown to the people living in the places that were to be affected. “You see your community is going, and they tell you that this is going to happen no matter what,” Colette said. “So even if we are successful in what we do next, we will lose those places. I couldn’t believe what I saw, that this place I hold so dear and that I have such a long memory of, all of those stories are going to go. Who I am and what I am describing is going to be lost. It’s surreal. That land for me and the right to be there was tied to our freedom. It was the difference between being enslaved and not. And to lose that was to lose everything.”

Republished

| Photo courtesy of Canva

PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City of Temple City invites sealed bids for the above stated project and will receive such bids in the office of the City Clerk, City of Temple City, 9701 Las Tunas Drive, Temple City, CA 91780, up to the hour of 2:00 PM on May 21, 2024. The bids received will be publicly opened approximately 15 minutes after the bid submittal deadline in the City Hall.

Late bids will not be considered.

There is no pre-bid meeting for this project.

Copies of the Bidding and Contract Documents, Plans and Specifications can be obtained by e-mailing your request with your contact information to: furkan.cetinkale@transtech.org. Upon receipt of your e-mail, you will be registered as a plan holder, and a pdf file of the Bidding and Contract Documents, Plans and Specifications will be e-mailed to you at no cost. Hard copies will not be provided.

All questions regarding this bid shall be directed via email, no later than 10 calendar days prior to the Bid due date and time, to furkan. cetinkale@transtech.org. Any questions received after this deadline will not be answered. It is the responsibility of the bidder to confirm transmission of correspondence.

Estimated cost for base bid schedule is in the range of $300,000. Bids must be accompanied by a bid bond, made payable to the City of TEMPLE CITY for an amount no less than ten percent (10%) of the bid amount.

Required License Classification is State of California Contractor License C-33 - Painting and Decorating Contractor. No bid will be accepted from a Contractor who has not been licensed in accordance with the provisions of the Business and Professions Code.

This project is subject to the requirements of SB 854. Prevailing wages shall be paid to all workers in accordance with California Labor Code 1771.

Bids must be prepared on the approved Proposal forms in conformance with the Instructions to Bidders and submitted in a sealed envelope plainly marked on the outside.

The City reserves the right to reject any or all bids, to waive any irregularity, and to take all bids under advisement for a period of 60 calendar days.

Any contract entered into pursuant to this notice shall become effective or enforceable against the City of TEMPLE CITY only when the formal written contract has been duly executed by the appropriate officers of the City.

If there are any questions regarding this project, please submit your questions to following e-mail: Furkan Cetinkale, Project Manager furkan.cetinkale@transtech.org

authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner

KENNETH D. KAN - SBN 217121

LAW OFFICE OF KENNETH D. KAN

1821 SOUTH 3RD STREET ALHAMBRA CA 91803

Telephone (626) 318-8286 4/15, 4/18, 4/22/24 CNS-3802851#

EL MONTE EXAMINER

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF:

THOMAS R. VALLEJO AKA

TOM R. VALLEJO AKA

THOMAS R. VALLEJO, JR.

CASE NO. 24STPB03890

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the WILL or estate, or both of

THOMAS R. VALLEJO AKA TOM R. VALLEJO AKA THOMAS R. VALLEJO, JR.

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by AZUCENA VALLEJO in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that AZUCENA VALLEJO be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.)

The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held in this court as follows: 05/09/24 at 8:30AM in Dept. 79 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

contingent creditors,

in this court as follows: 05/09/24 at 8:30AM in Dept. 67 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that DANA MARIE KLIEM be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests the decedent’s WILL and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The WILL and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held in this court as follows: 05/10/24 at 8:30AM in Dept. 29 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for Petitioner ROBERT MILLS, ESQ. - SBN 155896, LAW OFFICE OF ROBERT MILLS 1429 S. VALLEY CENTER AVE. GLENDORA CA 91740, Telephone (626) 827-1419 4/15, 4/18, 4/22/24 CNS-3803339# MONROVIA WEEKLY

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: CHRISTINE EVANS CASE NO. 24STPB04012

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the WILL or estate, or both of CHRISTINE EVANS.

held in this court as follows: 05/14/24 at 8:30AM in Dept. 29 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner

KYLE R. GRAVES - SBN 332702

GOLDEN OAKS LAW GROUP, LLP

1317 W. FOOTHILL BLVD., STE. 245

UPLAND CA 91786

Telephone (909) 981-6177

BSC 224994 4/18, 4/22, 4/25/24

CNS-3804327#

DUARTE DISPATCH

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF TRINIDAD E. LOPEZ

Case No. 24STPB04167

To all heirs, beneficiaries, cred-itors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of TRINIDAD E. LOPEZ

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by Norma Alzaga in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that Norma Alzaga be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administra-tion authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objec-tion to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on May 15, 2024 at 8:30 AM in Dept. No. 9 located at 111 N. Hill St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.

personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held in this court as follows: 05/17/24 at 8:30AM in Dept. 2D located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner MARK W. REGUS II - SBN 279653 LAW OFFICES OF MARK W.

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: BETTY JEAN BROOKS CASE NO. 24STPB03901

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors,

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by MARVIN ROBINSON in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES. THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that MARVIN ROBINSON be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your ap-pearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice

of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq. Business and Professions Code). Publish: 04/22/2024, 04/29/2024, 05/06/2024, 05/13/2024. ARCADIA WEEKLY. AAA1244318. FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE NO. 2024084007 NEW FILING. The following person(s) is (are) doing business as TOOLBOX PROJECTIONS, 8753 Isora St, Pico Rivera, CA 90660. This business is conducted by a individual. Registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on April 2024. Signed: Saul Cervantes, 8753 Isora St, Pico Rivera, CA 90660 (Owner). The statement was

LEGALS

REVISED NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING

Notice is hereby given that a public meeting on an Amendment to the Schedule of Taxes, Fees and Charges for fiscal year 2025 will be held by the Pasadena City Council at the time and place listed below:

DATE: May 20, 2024

TIME: 5:30 P.M.

PLACE: City Hall, Council Chambers

100 N. Garfield Avenue, Room S-249 Pasadena, CA 91101

Please refer to the City Council agenda for instructions on how to view a live stream of the meeting. The meeting agenda will be posted at: http://ww2.cityofpasadena.net/councilagendas/council_agenda.asp

Public Information: All interested persons may submit correspondence to correspondence@cityofpasadena.net prior to the start of the meeting. During the meeting and prior to the close of the public hearing, members of the public may provide live public comment. Please refer to the agenda when posted for instructions on how to provide live public comment.

This Amendment increases certain taxes, fees, and charges, excluding New Year’s Day revenues and Admission Tax, listed on the Schedule of Taxes, Fees, and Charges (last adopted by the City Council on May 22, 2023) by the CPI (3.3570%) for Fiscal Year 2025 beginning July 1, 2024. This includes all taxes, licenses, and a number of certain permits which are billed or assessed and collected throughout the year when due. The estimated revenue increase to the General Fund is $155,500 and $264,200 to the Non-General Funds. The existing amount or rate and the proposed amount or rate and the associated activity are listed below, after the related notice of public hearing.

REVISED NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

Notice is hereby given that a public hearing on an Amendment to Schedule of Taxes, Fees, and Charges for fiscal year 2025 will be held by the Pasadena City Council at the time and place listed below:

DATE: June 3, 2024

TIME: 5:30 P.M.

PLACE: City Hall, Council Chambers 100 N. Garfield Avenue, Room S-249 Pasadena, CA 91101

Please refer to the City Council agenda for instructions on how to view a live stream of the meeting. The meeting agenda will be posted at: http://ww2.cityofpasadena.net/councilagendas/council_agenda.asp

Public Information: All interested persons may submit correspondence to correspondence@cityofpasadena.net prior to the start of the meeting. During the meeting and prior to the close of the public hearing, members of the public may provide live public comment. Please refer to the agenda when posted for instructions on how to provide live public comment.

This Amendment increases certain taxes, fees, and charges, excluding New Year’s Day revenues and Admission Tax, listed on the Schedule of Taxes, Fees, and Charges (last adopted by the City Council on May 22, 2023) by the CPI (3.3570%) for Fiscal Year 2025 beginning July 1, 2024. This includes all taxes, licenses, and a number of certain permits which are billed or assessed and collected throughout the year when due. The estimated revenue increase to the General Fund is $155,500 and $264,200 to the Non-General Funds. The existing amount or rate and the proposed amount or rate and the associated activity are listed as follows:

ADA: To request a disability-related modification or accommodation necessary to facilitate meeting participation, please contact the City Clerk’s Office as soon as possible at (626) 744-4124 or cityclerk@ cityofpasadena.net. Providing at least 72 hours advance notice will help ensure availability.

Copies of the Schedule of Taxes, Fees and Charges, as well as supporting documentation, will be available on the City’s website

https://www.cityofpasadena.net/finance/general-fund/fees-tax-schedules/. Written comments may be sent to the Finance Director, at the Department of Finance, 3rd floor, 100 N. Garfield Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101, (626) 744-4355. Date Published: __________

Approved as to form:

If you applied to the City of Pasadena Section 8 waiting list in 2002, 2008, or 2014 and received an email or postcard from the City of Pasadena Housing Department telling you that the waiting list expired and your application was removed, this Public Notice affects your rights. You must act within 45 days of the published date of this notice.

In November 2022, the City of Pasadena Housing Department notified applicants who applied for Section 8 rental assistance in 2002, 2008, or 2014 and were on the waiting list that the waiting list had expired, and their application was removed from the waiting list. The policy that removed these applications has been reversed.

If you were informed that your application was removed from the City of Pasadena Section 8 waiting list due to the waiting list expiration policy, follow the instructions below to have your application returned to the waiting list with the original date and time of the application reinstated and any applicable preferences given.

www.Notiecfiling.com

To reinstate your application on the City of Pasadena Section 8 waiting list, within 45 days of the date of this notice, go to https://section8waitlist.cityofpasadena.net/ and follow the instructions to verify your family information and your current address. The online form is available in English, Spanish, and Armenian. If you need a reasonable accommodation, language assistance, or any other assistance to complete the online form or to be reinstated, please contact the City of Pasadena Citizen Service Center at 626 744-7311 (TDD 800 855-7100 or by dialing 711 from any phone) Monday-Friday 7:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Applications are selected from the waiting list based on preference. Preference is given to households that live or work in Pasadena, have a head of household with a disability or who is a veteran, or are experiencing homelessness.

Once your application is reinstated, the City of Pasadena Housing Department will contact you periodically to verify that you are still interested in remaining on the waiting list. The City of Pasadena Housing Department will also contact you once your application is reached on the waiting list. You will need to respond to these notices within the timeframe stated on the notice.

Քաղաքի Սեքշն 8-ի հերթացուցակին 2002, 2008 կամ 2014 թվականներին և ստացել իմեյլ կամ բացիկ Փասադենայի Քաղաքի Բնակարանային Բաժանմունքից, ուր ասվում է, որ սպասման ցուցակը սպառվել է, և ձեր դիմումը հանվել է, այս հանրային ծանուցումը կազդի ձեր իրավունքները։ Դուք պետք է քայլ վերցնեք այս ծանուցման հրապարակումից հաջորդող 45 օրերի ընթացքում: 2022 թվականի Նոյեմբերին, Փասադենայի Քաղաքի Բնակարանային Վարչությունը տեղեկացրել է այն դիմորդներին, ովքեր դիմել էին Սեքշն 8-ի վարձակալության աջակցության 2002, 2008 կամ 2014 թվականներին ու հերթագրվել, որ հերթացուցակի ժամկետը լրացել է, և նրանց դիմումը հանվել է հերթացուցակից: Այս դիմորդներին հեռացնելու քաղաքականությունը փոխվել է: Եթե դուք տեղեկացվել եք, որ ձեր դիմումը հեռացվել է Փասադենայի Քաղաքի Սեքշն 8-ի հերթացուցակից՝ հերթացուցակի ժամկետի լրանալու քաղաքականության պատճառով, հետևեք ներքևում նշված հրահանգներին, որպեսզի ձեր դիմումը վերականգնվի հերթացուցակում՝ օրիգինալ դիմումի ամսաթվով և ժամով, ինչպես նաեւ որեւե տրված նախապատվություններով: Ձեր դիմումը Փասադենա Քաղաքի Սեքշն 8-ի հերթացուցակում վերականգնելու համար այս ծանուցման օրվանից 45 օրվա ընթացքում այցելեք www.cityofpasadena.net/waitinglistportal և հետևեք հրահանգներին՝ ստուգելու ձեր ընտանիքի տվյալները և ձեր ներկա հասցեն: Առցանց ձևը հասանելի է անգլերեն, իսպաներեն

է տրվում այն տնային տնտեսություններին, որոնք ապրում կամ աշխատում են Փասադենայում, ունեն հաշմանդամություն ունեցող ընտանիքի ղեկավար կամ վետերան, կամ անօթևան են: Երբ ձեր դիմումը վերականգնվի, Փասադենայի Քաղաքապետարանը պարբերաբար կապ կհաստատի ձեզ հետ՝ ստուգելու, որ դուք դեռ հետաքրքրված եք մնալու հերթացուցակում: Փասադենայի Քաղաքի Բնակարանային Բաժանմունքը նույնպես կկապվի ձեզ հետ, երբ ձեր դիմումը հայտնվի հերթացուցակում: Դուք պետք է պատասխանեք այս ծանուցումներին ծանուցման մեջ նշված ժամկետներում:

Publish April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 2024

PASADENA PRESS

Zoning Code Amendments related to: (1)Restaurant Regulations (2) Entitlement Time Limits/Extensions and (3) Miscellaneous Updates

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Proposed are Amendments to various sections of Title 17 (the Zoning Code) of the Pasadena Municipal Code (PMC). The Planning Commission conducted a study session on the various amendments on November 8, 2023. The first relates to restaurants whereby three temporary measures, that were enacted in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, would be codified. These are to continue allowing: 1) Walk-up windows at restaurants by-right; 2) An Administrative Conditional Use Permit process for the on-site sale of alcohol at restaurants; and 3) Outdoor dining on private property (e.g., parking lots and other paved areas).

The second set of Amendments would implement the same time limit (three years) for most land use entitlements, such as Conditional Use Permits, Variances and Concept Design Review, regardless of the zoning district. Currently time limits are different based on zoning district. This amendment would also change the review authority for time extensions from the original hearing body (e.g., Design Commission, Hearing Officer) to the Director of Planning & Community Development. The third set of Amendments are miscellaneous updates to clarify the application of development standards and other administrative clean-ups for internal consistency within the Zoning Code.

PROJECT LOCATION: Citywide.

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINATION: The Planning Commission will consider whether adoption of the proposed Zoning Code Amendments are exempt from environmental review pursuant to the guidelines of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) under Section 15305 (Class 5 – Minor Alterations in Land Use Limitations) and whether there are no features that distinguish this project from others in the exempt class, therefore resulting in no unusual circumstances.

APPROVALS NEEDED: The Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing and consider the proposed Zoning Code Amendments and environmental determination. The Planning Commission recommendation will be forwarded to the City Council, who will

make a final decision at a separately noticed public hearing.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing and consider the proposed Zoning Code Amendments and proposed environmental determination. The hearing is scheduled for:

Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Place: Council Chambers, Pasadena City Hall 100 North Garfield Avenue, Room S249. The meeting agenda will be posted by April 18, 2024 at www.cityofpasadena.net/ Commissions/public-comment

PUBLIC INFORMATION: Any interested party or their representative may provide live public comment by following the instructions in the meeting agenda. Prior to the start of the meeting, written correspondence may be emailed to commentsPC@cityofpasadena. net or mailed to the address below (note that this email address will not be checked once the meeting starts).

Contact Person: David Sinclair, Senior Planner

Phone: (626) 744-6766

E-mail: dsinclair@cityofpasadena.net

Website: www.cityofpasadena.net/planning

Mailing Address:

Planning & Community Development Department

Planning Division, Community Planning Section

175 North Garfield Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

ADA: To request a disability-related modification or accommodation necessary to facilitate meeting participation, please contact the Planning & Community Development Department as soon as possible at (626) 744-4009 or (626) 744-4371 (TDD) or commentsPC@ cityofpasadena.net. Providing at least 72 hours advance notice will help ensure availability. Language translation services may also be requested with 72-hour advance notice by calling (626) 744-4009.

Published April 8, 15, 22, 2024 PASADENA PRESS

RESOLUTION NO. 10041

RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PASADENA (A) GIVING NOTICE OF APPLICATIONS RECEIVED FOR A NON-EXCLUSIVE POLICE TOWING FRANCHISE; AND (B) SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING TO CONSIDER THE GRANTING OF POLICE TOWING FRANCHISES

WHEREAS, non-exclusive police towing franchises are regulated through Chapter 10.46 of the Pasadena Municipal Code;

WHEREAS, the City has received applications (the “Applica tions”) from the following entities for a police towing franchise:

• A-Car Auto - Pasadena;

•Henry’s Towing and Recovery - Alhambra

•M&M Action Towing - South Pasadena; and

•Dickson Motor Service - San Gabriel.

WHEREAS, Pasadena Municipal Code Section 10.46.070 requires the City Council to adopt a resolution giving notice of the applications and setting a time and place for a public hearing on the applications.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Pasadena, California that:

1.The City has received the above-mentioned Applications for a police towing franchise, and a copy of the Applications are on file with the Chief of Police.

2.A public hearing concerning the City Council’s consideration of the Applications will be held on May 13, 2024, at 5:30 p.m., or as soon thereafter as thematter can be heard, in the Council Chamber of Pasadena City Hall, located at 100 North Garfield Avenue, Room S249, Pasadena, California. At such public hearing, the City Council will hear persons desiring to be heard in favor of or in opposition to the granting of the franchises to the applicants.

3.The City Clerk shall cause this resolution to be published at least once in a newspaper of general circulation in the City at least ten (10)days prior to the public hearing.

Adopted at the regular meeting of the City Council on the _ day of April, 2024, by the following vote:

AYES: Councilmembers Hampton, Jones, Lyon, Masuda, Rivas, Mayor Gordo

NOES: None

Williams, Vice Mayor

pm or as soon thereafter as possible.

The hearing will be open to the public. For public comments and questions during the meeting, the public may call 818-937-8100. City staff will be submitting these questions and comments in real time to the appropriate person during the meeting. You may also testify in person at the hearing if you wish to do so. Written comments may be submitted to the planner prior to the hearing.

The meeting can be viewed on Charter Cable Channel 6 or by streaming online at: https://www. glendaleca.gov/government/departments/management-services/gtv6/live-video-stream

If you would like more information on the proposal, please contact the case planner Roger Kiesel in the Planning Division at (818) 548-2140 or (818) 937-8152 (email: rkiesel@glendaleca.gov). The staff report and case materials will be available before the hearing date at www.glendaleca.gov/agendas.

Any person having an interest in the project described above may participate in the hearing, by phone as outlined above, or appear in person and may be heard in support of their opinion. Any person protesting may file a duly signed and acknowledged written protest with the Director of Community Development not later than the hour set for public hearing before the Planning Commission. “Acknowledged” shall mean a declaration of property ownership (or occupant if not owner) under penalty of perjury. If you challenge the decision of this project in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues you or someone else raised at the public hearing described in this notice, or in written correspondence delivered to the City of Glendale, at or prior to the public hearing. In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, please notify the Community Development Department at least 48 hours (or two business days) for requests regarding sign language translation and Braille transcription services.

Publish April 22, 2024 GLENDALE

Dr. Suzie Abajian, The City Clerk of the City of Glendale

1. Weed control in all City

2. Monitoring and control of weeds in the North San Fernando Road Corridor Landscape Maintenance District on no less than a bimonthly (twice per month) basis. Locations include all City streets and sidewalks, in asphalt/ concrete medians, in City alleys, within all tree wells, and within open parkways within the public right-of-way.

3. Specific retreatment of vegetation as needed, upon request.

4. Abatement and removal of treated plant material in the City of Glendale as soon as possible.

5. Bimonthly (twice per month) reporting to the Urban Forester regarding schedule, work locations, and work progress.

6. Monthly reporting to the Urban Forester with invoices that include schedule, work locations, and spray totals, and look-ahead schedules as described in Special Conditions. Invoices shall be processed promptly by the Contractor upon completion of work, and submitted directly to the City’s Accounts Payable office via their online portal at: https://www.glendaleca.gov/government/departments/finance/accounting/invoice-submittal. A copy of the submitted invoice should be sent to the Urban Forester or his/her designee for review.

Weed control shall include pre-emergent and post-emergent systemic and contact herbicidal spraying. Contractor shall describe the schedule and types of treatment proposed inclusive of the herbicides to be used, including the proposed primary systemic herbicide(s) to be used and their totals. Contractor shall provide Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for each chemical to be utilized. Glyphosate-based products shall not be used and should not be submitted as part of this bid. Contractor shall not utilize controls or methods of control that harm non-targeted City or private trees and/or vegetation.

Except within the North San Fernando Road Corridor Landscape Maintenance District, weed control within City right-of-ways adjacent to private property, including tree wells, is not part of the scope of work. The Glendale Municipal Code (GMC 8.32.030) states:

All persons owning, occupying or having control of property shall keep the sidewalk, parkway, gutter and alley in front of or adjacent to the side or rear of such property free of litter, weeds and other vegetation growing thereon, except such as may be sown, or planted for the purposes of landscaping and maintenance pursuant to Section 12.04.020 of this code. (Ord. 5385 § 2, 2004: prior code § 24-11)

Areas to perform weed control total to approximately 830 acres per year, approximately 5 acres of which is located within the North San Fernando Road Corridor Landscape Maintenance District. Manual weed removal will be limited to weeds five inches (5”) or higher. In some locations where herbicidal treatments are not possible for feasible based on the above scope of services, manual weed removal shall be the only method of removal. At the discretion of the Urban Forester or his/her designee the use of organic chemicals, mechanical and/or manual weed removal may be ordered in lieu of other herbicidal treatments.

Refer to the General Conditions and Special Conditions for complete details and requirements.

Contract:

The City intends to award a Contract with a three-year term, with a potential for two (2)one year extensions, based on satisfactory performance during the prior year and mutual agreement of the parties for a total term of five (5) years, which may thereafter be extended on a month-to-month basis upon mutual agreement of the parties..

Incomplete Work, Complaints, and Liquidated Damages:

See Appendix 11 and Section 8 of the Contract between City and Contractor for terms and conditions relating to incomplete work, complaints, and liquidated damages.

Other Bidding Information:

1. Bidding Documents: Bids must be made on the Bidder’s forms contained herein. Bid documents (plans, specifications, bid forms, and Addendums) may be obtained electronically at the City’s website: http://glendaleca.gov/ government/departments/public-works/bids

2. Contract Contingent on Annual Funding Appropriations. As set forth in Section 3 of the Contract, while the initial term of the Contract is three years, the availability and appropriation of funding for the Work will be determined on an annual basis. The Contract is valid and enforceable in any calendar year only if sufficient funds are made available for the purpose of the Contract. If sufficient funds are not appropriated in any year, the Contract may be amended to reflect any reduction in funding for the Work.

3. Completion: This Work will be performed on an ongoing basis for an initial minimum term of three (3) years from the Date of Commencement as established by the City’s written Notice to Proceed.

4. Acceptance or Rejection of Bids. The City reserves the right to reject any and all Bids, to award all or any individual part/item of the Bid, and to waive any

or technical defects in such Bids and determine the lowest responsible Bidder, whichever may be in the best interests of the City. No late Bids will be accepted, nor will any oral, facsimile or electronic Bids be accepted by the City.

5. Mandatory Pre-Bid Conference. A mandatory

Port of LA reports 30% increase in cargo movement

By City News Service

The Port of Los Angeles saw more than 2 million shipmentsmoved across marine terminals in the first quarter of 2024, a 30% increase over last year, officials announced Wednesday.

The port handled 743,427 container units in March, a 19% increase over the same time last year, which was also the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year growth. Overall, the increase in cargo movement in the first quarter of 2024 was one of the port’s “best,” behind only a pandemic import surge in 2021 and 2022, according to port officials.

“Moving into April and the second quarter, I expect robust cargo flow to continue

here,” Gene Seroka, executive director of the port, said during an online briefing Wednesday. “A strong job market and continued consumer spending, along with our ability to handle additional volume, will help drive cargo to Los Angeles in the coming months.”

In March, loaded imports landed at 379,542 twentyfoot equivalent units, up 19% compared to the previous year. Loaded exports came in at 144,718 TEUs, an increase of 47% compared to last year.

The port processed 219,158 empty containers, up 7% over 2023.

Seroka noted challenges as a result of security and supply chain impacts, in particular

the Baltimore bridge collapse in March. The Francis Scott Key Bridge at the Port of Baltimore collapsed after a cargo ship crashed into it, killing six construction workers, who were working on the bridge.

“We’re deeply concerned about the businesses, the workforce and the many people who are experiencing a severe economic impact because of this incident,” Seroka said. “Despite some disruptions, our nation’s supply chains and its leaders have once again demonstrated resiliency.”

The Port of Long Beach also reported similar growth, moving 654,082 TEUs in March, an increase of 8.3% from the same period last

year. Imports increased by 302,521 TEUs, as well as movement of 246,464 empty containers.

Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology to President Joe Biden, joined Seroka to discuss cyber security.

Following the Baltimore bridge collapse, Biden issued an executive order to secure cybersecurity at ports across the country -- although the Baltimore incident was not considered an intentional act.

“We’re in a period where we’re seeing rising security attacks from countries and criminals alike,” Neuberger said. “Notably, criminals have conducted almost 5,000

ransomware attacks around the world.”

She added, “Biden’s approach has been to say we really need to lock our digital doors, ensure that cyber-

Pasadena 710 oral history project seeks residents’ stories

By Staff

Pasadena officials want to hear from the thousands of residents, businesses and organizations displaced by the 710 Freeway construction project in the 1960s and ‘70s.

The oral history portion of the Historic Project for the City’s 710 Stub Master Plan is accepting submissions from former residents as well as family members of those personally impacted by the 710 construction. The oral history component features an online Commu-

nity Input Tool and survey that are designed to record participants’ information, stories and experiences.

“These stories and perspectives are important to compiling a comprehensive narrative of experiences from residents who were impacted by the construction of the 710,” according to a city statement. “The City is committed to the inclusivity of its diverse community and understands that every story will contribute to the rich tapestry of the Historic

Project’s oral history.”

The online survey is scheduled to start accepting submissions on April 29 and will end on June 30.The survey is available in English, Japanese and Spanish and covers topics that include:

-Family and personal experiences connected with the 710 Freeway construction;

- The historical significance of the freeway construction as it relates to Pasadena; and

San Bernardino museum to host Earth Day activities

By Staff

The San Bernardino County Museum will celebrate Earth Day on Saturday with a full day of planet-friendly activities. The museum has partnered with the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District to welcome Krystle Hickman,whoorganizers described as a “renowned photographer,speaker, and community scientist.” Hickman will speak about melittology, which is the study of bees, community science and using photography to aid scientific discovery and ecosystem sustainability.

“The day will be buzzing with excitement as Krystle will take us on a journey to

a deeper appreciation and understanding of nature’s charismatic creatures, native bees,” according to a museum statement. “Through her stunning macro photography, you will learn what makes them so special and recognize the signs of a healthy garden.”

Following the presentation, attendees can tour the museum’s water-wise garden with Hickman and attempt some scientific photography themselves, then learn how to upload to this years’ City Nature Challenge project on the iNaturalist app, museum officials said. During the tour Hickman will impart tips for taking pictures of native

bees in backyards, city parks and nature preserves with both cameras and mobile phones. She will also discuss basic camera settings, how to use the histogram and offer advice on choosing a lens.

Organizers said event participants should bring their cameras and cell phones to take photos and be eligible to win one of seven “Native Bees of The Western United States” flashcard decks that feature Hickman’s photography.

In the afternoon museum visitors can learn how to make seed bombs with native plant seeds (while supplies last) and meet the museum’s Curator of Inte-

grated Biology Mackenzie Kirchner-Smith, “who will be outdoors in our courtyard talking about citizen science and teaching visitors how to use the iNaturalist app to document the wildlife in our local region,” organizers said.

The museum is at 2024 Orange Tree Lane in Redlands, and the Earth Day event will go from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to organizers. General admission costs $10 for adults, $8 for military or seniors, $7 for students and $5 per child ages 6-12. Kids 5 and younger and Museum Foundation members get in free.

For more information visit museum.sbcounty.gov.

security practices are put in place by critical services from food to water systems, to commerce systems, to ensure that those attacks do not happen.”

-The construction’s environmental, social and economic impacts.

Officials will use the survey’s information to choose “candidates for preliminary interviews conducted by an experienced historian,” according to the city. The survey is available to start now at Bit.ly/ OralHistoryInput.

A hard copy of the survey is available from the city’s project consultant by calling 626-4054848 Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. A voicemail option will be available 24/7.

| Photo courtesy of Port of Los Angeles/Facebook

| Photos courtesy of the city of Pasadena

Bees and pollinators are essential to ecosystems. | Photo by wirestock/Envato Elements

Los Angeles County offers grants for nonprofits to buy vacant land

By Staff

Los Angeles County is offering $10 million in grants for nonprofit organizations to acquire vacant or abandoned properties in areas most negatively affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the Department of Economic Opportunityannounced Monday.

The Commercial Acquisition Fund, which is bankrolled by the federal American Rescue Plan Act, will supply grant awards this year ranging from $500,000 to $2 million for land acquisitions that must close escrow by Dec. 1, according to the county.

To be eligible, organiza-

tions must be active nonprofits, includingcommunity developmentcorporations and community land trusts, or be LA County-certified businesses that partner with nonprofitorganizations, officials said. Applicants also must not be “disbarred” by any government entity “or have unresolved violations noted in the County’s contracting database.”

The grants involve a two-step application process.

Applicants must first gain the county’s “qualifying acquisition entity” designation following an evaluation of their real estate experience,

“commitment to community impact” and financial capacity to finish a development project. QAE’s may then apply for funding to buy commercial properties that must:

- Be in “highest” and “high need” areas based on the county’s COVID-19 Vulnerability and Recovery Index in the Equity Explorer Tool, which is an online map platform;

- Have a fiscally feasible rehabilitation and operations plan;

- Lease available space to qualifying small businesses and nonprofit organizations; and

- Have a 55-year covenant limiting rents to belowmarket rates.

QAE applications are due May 20 at 5 p.m. On June 3 officials will send out QAE notifications, and on June 10 QAE’s can start submitting funding applications, according to the county.

Application training sessions are scheuled online, April 24 starting at 10 a.m., and in-person, May 9 at 10 a.m. Online RSVP is required to attend.

More information on the grant program is at the Economic Opportunity Department’s website.

Longtime Arcadia City Clerk Gene Glasco retires

By Staff

Arcadia City Clerk Gene Glasco has retired after 12 years of service.

The April 16 City Council meeting was his last day officially holding the city clerk position. City officials, colleagues and family members attended the meeting to celebrate Glasco’s tenure as clerk and his accomplishments in the community.

“It has been a distinct pleasure serving in my capacity as elected City Clerk for the City of Arcadia, and I encourage anyone to volunteer their time,” Glasco said in a statement. “If they can volunteer to serve the City, I

promise it will be an enriching experience like the one I have experienced.”

Glasco’s connection to Arcadia spans nearly 70 years.

In addition to his three terms as city clerk, Glasco has also chaired the Arcadia Senior Citizens’ Commission and served as president of the Arcadia Historical Society, vice president of the Arcadia Highlands Homeowners Association and a volunteer in patrol with the Arcadia Police Department.

Officials said Glasco was the driving force for creating the Arcadia Vietnam War Monument that was unveiled

in May 2016 at Arcadia County Park.

“Gene’s efforts over the years will always remain an integral part of his legacy,” Mayor April Verlato said in a statement. “We’ve been so fortunate to have a dedicated public servant for so long and the City Council extends its deepest gratitude for Gene’s unwavering service to Arcadia.”

Glasco’s community service garnered recognition from local elected officials. In 2017 Rep. Judy Chu, D-Arcadia, named him community activist of the year, and former Assemblyman Ed Chau gave

Glasco a Make A Difference Award. Glasco also was named 2017-18 citizen of the year by the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce and received the Military Service & Stewardship Award from the Monrovia Chamber of Commerce.

An exhibit at the Gilb Museum of Arcadia Heritage, located at 380 W. Huntington Drive in Arcadia, features Glasco’s uniform worn during his U.S. Navy service along with some of his medals and military memorabilia.

The elected city clerk position has become mostly ceremonial over time, and voters eliminated it in 2022,

according to the city statement.

“With Gene’s retirement, the City Manager will appoint a City Clerk to perform the powers and duties outlined

Tin the Charter,” officials said.

“Most of the traditional City Clerk duties are currently performed by professional staff in the City Manager’s Office.”

Azusa fair highlights outdoor recreation, environmental stewardship

he city of Azusa on April 13 hosted the Outdoor Recreation & Eco-Fair to help connect the community with their local mountains and encourage healthy living, officials said.

The free event was timed to celebrate Earth Month and featured outdoor recreational activities and entertainment from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Memorial Park.

The fair’s focus was the ALL in For Azusa initiative, which aims to get the public into “integrative recreation by highlighting environmental stewardship, social connections, the outdoors and encourage the community to visit the San Gabriel Canyon Gateway Center, to explore and learn about their local mountains, connect

with nature, and embrace a healthy lifestyle,” according to an announcement from the city prior to the fair.

The outdoor, familyoriented event featured live music, rock climbing, axe throwing and a variety of outdoor games and skill tests, snow to play in and free food. Attendees also learned about the cosmos with help from the Mount Wilson Observatory staff, in addition to the event’s art classes, face painting and giveaways that involved more than 30 local organizations, city officials said.

“Azusa has long been known as the Canyon City — the gateway to the San Gabriel National Monument,” Mayor Robert Gonzales said. “This past

By Joe Taglieri joet@beaconmedianews.com

weekend, Azusa celebrated this natural heritage with an Eco Fair to promote heathy lifestyles and highlight our commitment to our environmental stewardship of this

urban interface.”

Some interactive highlights from the fair included the observatory’s Solar Telescope and information on star gazing, the Azusa Pacific University Community Garden, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health’s emphasis on nature’s connection to human wellness and the San Dimas Canyon Nature Center’s invitation to the community to visit the center and learn about the various types of local wild animals.

These organizations also were part of the fair: Azusa Light & Water; Watershed Conservation Authority; Nature For All; Outward Bound Adventures Inc.; Friends of the LA River;

Azusa Beautiful; Heal the Bay; Cougar Conservancy; National Forest Foundation; San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps; Latino Outdoors; Azusa Library; Angeles National Forest and LA Nature for All, among others.

“Through the All in For Azusa initiative we highlighted our environment and social connections as well as the benefits of outdoor recreation,” Gonzalez said. “The Eco Fair brought families together to learn about our local mountains, encouraged sustainable practices and inspired a new generation of environmental stewards. Together, we’re building a brighter, healthier and greener tomorrow for Azusa and future generations.”

| Photos courtesy of the city of Azusa

| Image courtesy of Los Angeles County

Arcadia City Clerk Gene Glasco, seated, with council members. | Photo courtesy of the city of Arcadia