Mailbag: Weighing in on Measure N, craftsman homes and genocide recognition
Man of letters admired Armenia
The famous British poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) — considered the greatest of all the Romantic poets — was an admirer of the Armenian people, their culture and their language.
With the assistance of Father Avgerian, he studied Armenian at the San Lazzaro degli Armeni (an Armenian monastery) in Venice between 1816 and 1817. His studies there led him to co-write “English Grammar and Armenian” in 1817, “Armenian Grammar and English” in 1819, and to assist with an English-Armenian dictionary in 1821.
Given that Byron plunged himself into the Greek war for independence from the Ottoman Empire, he would, no doubt, (if he were with us today) take up the cause of the Armenian people in their quest to have the Armenian Genocide publicly recognized.
Valerie E. Weich
Glendale
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Hotel’s lounge would have impact
City Commissioner Michael Tchakmakjian has filed plans to build a six-story hotel on the northeast corner of Brand Boulevard and Dryden Street, across the street from St. Mark’s Church and the day care center. The entrance is on Dryden.
The Planning Department sent notice of a Design Review Board hearing set for May 12 at 5 p.m. and the comment period to respond to a negative declaration document (required to show there is no substantial evidence a project would have a significant effect on the environment) that describes a six-story 85-room hotel with 85 parking spaces. The Planning Department determined the hotel project would not impact the neighborhood.
The plans include a full-service restaurant, bar, café and lounge which consumes the majority of the ground floor, two approximately 1,000-square-foot meeting rooms and an elevator that stops at the seventh floor — a landscaped sky bar with cabanas and a 20-foot-long structure labeled “towels.”
Unlike the Embassy Suites project for which the city required a full environmental impact report, a parking space for each of the 277 rooms, and 143 parking spaces for the hotel’s restaurant, lounge and meeting rooms, this new hotel received an incomplete environmental review and no on-site parking for the restaurant and meeting rooms is required. Large vehicles will have to back out onto Dryden or access the hotel from the east through the residential neighborhoods.
The negative declaration did not address the significant impacts of noise and light from the seventh-floor sky bar; nighttime lighting; loss of sunlight to adjacent residences; parking burden on the residences, church and local business; congestion or safety issues.
We were promised that development pressure on the residences would be reduced when the Downtown Specific Plan was adopted. This project will create many permanent and significant impacts. When this project ends up before the City Council on appeal we will learn where each council member stands on that promise.
Laurie Collins
Glendale
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Measure N downsizes city
The repeal of the utility users tax will force our City Council to stop giving salary increases to city employees. The repeal will help reduce our runaway unfunded pension debt obligations. The repeal will begin addressing reduction in expenditures in all departments.
We should move forward in placing all future city employees on Social Security and a 401K plan. We need to downsize top management, reducing overtime for well-paid employees and reducing salary perks.
We should be outsourcing to Los Angeles County for police and fire services. County pension plans are self-funded. If the wealthy and low-crime cities of La Cañada Flintridge, Calabasas and Yorba Linda have chosen county services, Glendale should be able to move to the county as well.
The city does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. The present system is broken! By Glendale voters approving Measure N, the voters will have forced our council to make changes for the better. Vote ‘Yes” on Measure N.
Mike Mohill
Glendale
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Craftsman homes are disappearing
As a resident of Glendale and member of the Glendale Historical Society, I was pleased to hear that a couple of Craftsman bungalows in the downtown area received a temporary reprieve. A developer is planning to demolish them to build a five story, 44-unit apartment building on South Kenwood Street. It seems that the City Council received enough mail from residents concerned about the loss of these historic resources that the hearing was postponed.
In my view, this case brings up questions about how the city is managing its growth. In 2007, the city adopted the Downtown Specific Plan to help promote the development of a lively, mixed-use environment in the city center.
This goal required the addition of a significant amount of new housing. At the same time, the city initiated two surveys intended to identify historic resources that could be endangered by new development. This made sense, since Downtown Glendale has already lost much of its historic fabric.
Now, nine years later, large apartment structures are no longer rare downtown, while Craftsman single-family homes are. Normally, things that are increasingly rare become increasingly precious, but this does not seem to be the case in Glendale.
I hope the News-Press will take a closer look at this issue, and help answer some important questions.
For example, why haven’t the surveys been updated in almost 10 years, as Glendale’s downtown historic resources have been demolished? How many houses on the Craftsman survey have been demolished? Are projects reassessed until the outcome desirable to developers is achieved? Is the process consistent? And importantly, is it shielding decision makers from the responsibility for their choices?
Ely Lester
Glendale
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Our tax system needs revision
Another milestone has passed us by without any hyperbole or use of the bully pulpit by those in power or those seeking office. The anniversary that has been neglected is the Revenue Act of 1916, which was touted as the principle of progressive taxation, or what we know today as our income tax and the obligation of all Americans to file their Form 1040, which at one time was only one page in length.
When the tax was first imposed, the bottom rate was 2% and the top rate for those making more than $2 million in 1916 was 15%. Perhaps it is time to take a look at how this tax once thought to be progressive has become so regressive and filled with so many loopholes that it resembles a sieve.
While Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once remarked that “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society,” I would argue that we are less civil now than we were 100 years ago.
It is also clear that American society is evolving into a nanny state where nearly half of the population expects government to provide for them, even when they are capable of providing for themselves. Perhaps it is time for us to revisit the wisdom of the past and realize that government cannot solve all of our problems and that perhaps government itself is the problem and it is in serious need or reform and improvement.
It is past time to revise tax codes, clean up some of the dedications that benefit the rich and hurt the shrinking middle class and toss some of the programs that either don’t work or programs that are best left to the private sector.
Robert B. Taylor
Glendale
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Commitment to arts in question
I and 19 other Glendale residents are passionate about arts and education. As volunteers we are currently helping in the presentation of RACHFEST 2017, which is being presented in Glendale for the first time.
We have read with a great interest the article published in the Glendale-News Press on April 1, that the City Council generously approved Glendale’s’ 2016 entry to the annual Pasadena Rose Parade with a 100% contribution at a cost of $200,000 and they probably would contribute another $150,000 for the 2017 Rose Parade if the organizer could raise at least $50,000. It is our observation that Glendale residents have little or no interest in sponsoring participation in Rose Parade.
At the same time we learned from the organizers of RACHFEST 2017 that City Council members turned down a request to provide any support to the international music festival that previously had been presented with great success in the cities of Pasadena and Los Angeles.
There appears to be a conflict been this current situation and the stated goal of arts and culture in the Glendale strategic plan. We would be very interested to learn about the city’s reasons for these actions.
Moreover, to our great disappointment recently, Councilman Zareh Sinanyan refused to meet with festival committee members to discuss the project needs with us.
It’s time for the City Council to make Glendale a vibrant cultural city for its residents and not just a vibrant place for business opportunities.
Richard Bennett
Glendale