Glendale City Council candidates round out final campaign days at forum
In one of the few remaining candidate forums before the April 4 election, eight of the 10 City Council hopefuls made a final push for their campaigns during a more flexible question-and-answer debate.
The forum, held on March 22 and hosted by the Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn., let candidates answer more individually tailored questions with quick one-minute responses in front of a large audience amassed at the New Life Christian Church.
Eight candidates vying for the three seats were in attendance, with Onnik Mehrabian and Vrej Agajanian unable to make it.
No one issue dominated the discussion, which varied from how the city should handle granny-flats to rent control to traffic. Even the topic of coyotes and liquor licenses were discussed.
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Regarding the future of Glendale’s urgency ordinance on a property owner’s second-unit expansion, known as granny flats, incumbent Ara Najarian said he’s concerned with not only how a new state law might alter the structural character of neighborhoods, but the types of renters as well.
Construction of accessory-dwelling units was made less restricted by the state this past September with passage of Assembly Bill 2299. State officials said the secondary-dwelling units will increase the number of affordable housing units as rent costs rise.
“What you’re doing is you’re bringing in low-income housing, not like we have in Glendale, where we do criminal background checks, and we vet the tenants,” Najarian said. “These are unvetted tenants who are going to be in our neighborhoods.”
Challenger Mark MacCarley, who is a business owner, said granny-flats are destroying the R1 zone, which limits residential housing for the sake of problems that include such as noise and traffic, and incumbent Zareh Sinanyan agreed, saying residents who chose R1 homes didn’t want to live in duplexes.
Regarding how Glendale would recover should a judge’s ruling stand requiring the city to pay back $57 million for an illegal energy-rate hike, Sinanyan also said the council should hire a third-party attorney to analyze the case in an unbiased manner before deciding to appeal.
Challenger Mike Van Gorder, a freelance photographer, said the potential loss of revenue should be made up through the development of a municipal Internet service.
“Instead of handing people a little bit of cash back … we ask for a deferred-payment situation so that it doesn’t have to happen immediately and, in the meantime, develop something that is going to make Glendale unique,” Van Gorder said.
Whether Glendale should declare itself a sanctuary city for undocumented residents made its way to forum discussion again, with most candidates agreeing they prefer not to have the official title, but instead ask local law enforcement to not get involved with rounding up immigrants.
However, challenger Mike Mohill, a retired business owner, seemed to disagree with the notion altogether.
“Does anyone in this room have a loved one who was killed by an illegal alien? If it doesn’t affect you personally, I guess it’s OK, but ask the people who’ve been impacted…” Mohill said. “I’m an immigrant, but you know what? There are laws, and the law right now says a sanctuary city is against the law.”
Twitter: @JeffLanda
