Town Council Recap: PUSD Redistricting Appointments, Hahamongna Sediment Removal, Farmers' Market Update

At Tuesday night's Town Council meeting the Council appointed two Altadena residents to represent the town in a task force that will look at moving the Pasadena Unified School District's board from  

The plan would allow each resident of Pasadena Unified areas (Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and Altadena) to vote for one school board member in their geographic area, rather than vote to approve the entire board.  Some have raised concerns that could mean Altadena gets split into several districts and will be effectively disenfranchised.

Altadena's two representatives will be Richard Moon, a local screenwriter, and Bernardean Broadous, a professor and attorney who chairs the West Altadena Project Area Committee. 

Town Council Chair Gino Sund said the council had about 10 serious candidates who asked to be recommended, and after interviewing several, the Council settled on Moon and Broadous.

Moon, whose daughter attends Loma Alta Elementary, has studied the issue carefully and gave a "30 minute dissertation" on all the potential negative outcomes for Altadena if the plan were to go through, Sund said. 

Broadous's strength is her experience volunteering in Altadena and her knowledge of the law, he added.

Sund said the Council was also looking for candidates who would strongly represent Altadena even if it put them into conflict with other members of the task force.

The two will now be reviewed and likely appointed to the task force by County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who more or less outsourced the appointment task to the Town Council.

Sund said that some people complained that the Town Council did not have an official application process and went about the recommendations somewhat informally, but he said the council did the best they could with a short time schedule.

"We did as much outreach as we could, but we only had a month," Sund said.

Other issues discussed at the Town Council meeting included:

• An update on the .  County officials said that starting in July they would begin to remove 25,000 cubic yards of sediment along the face of the Devil's Gate Dam, which will amount to about 2,500 truckloads of dirt over a 3 to 4 month period. 
• An update on the Loma Alta farmers' market, which as we , will not be starting on April 24 as originally planned.  Al Evans of the County Parks and Recreation Department said he is looking for a new person to run the market after the original vendor backed out, claiming he injured his back.  Evans said finding a new vendor would be a "daunting task," because the starting investment in the market would be about $2,000 to $3,000 in permit fees before the market was even held.  There is no timetable on when the market might start up.
• Several Town Council members met with a private organization which is filing for a permit to which would host 250 students.  The Town Council members told the operator that the project is unpopular with the community and attempted to dissuade him from going forward with it, Sund said.  However, Sund reported, the operator has told Council he won't withdraw his application.  County planning officials will ultimately make the ruling on the issue, but there will be public outreach meetings and the Town Council will have a hearing and make a recommendation to the county, so community members opposed to the school will have a chance to speak out, Sund said. 
• Captain Steve McLean, of the Altadena Sheriff's Station, gave a report on for shootings in Altadena and Pasadena, and said he expects more arrests in the coming months.
• Eric Pierce, who is chairing the Town Council election committee, announced the election will be held on Saturday June 11, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.  There will be a May 17 candidates' forum, and a possible pre-election voting date on Tuesday June 7 for those who might be out of town on June 11.  For anyone interested in running for Town Council, a candidate’s packet will be available soon, he said, hopefully by this Friday.  Those interested in registering to run will be able to pick up the packets at the .  Pierce is also looking for volunteers to help run the election and anyone interested should email him at atcelection@yahoo.com
• David Datz, of the Altadena Library Board of Trustees, addressed the council about the , which would involve an expansion of the library to make it compliant with the American With Disabilities Act.  The basic issue is that to fix the library's ADA violations without removing a significant portion of its book catalog will require a building expansion.  Datz said the library will need to raise $18 million to do the project, as there will be no tax money available to carry out the renovations.