Mailbag: Community plan is worth a look
I was happy to hear that Glendale Unified School District 2017-18 calendar was just Phase One in the process of returning our calendar to a later start date and a longer summer. For calendar year 2018-19, I join others in asking the school board to approve a plan that is within the parameters of the overwhelming majority vote from the surveys and community meetings. It would be disrespectful to the community for a few people to override the overwhelming majority vote. All were invited. Many people showed up and voted in good faith.
The overall “specific” top vote-getter at the three community meetings was the following solution:
Monday, Aug. 20, 2018 through Wednesday, May 29, 2019 (adjusted for 2018-19);
maintain 11 full weeks of summer recess;
limit student holidays to 24 or 25 (this includes Armenian Christmas and Genocide);
- end the first semester at winter break.
Burbank schools and Flintridge Prep maintain an 11-week summer recess, with La Cañada close behind.
My heart was especially touched by comments from working parents and teachers who are financially affected by the extra holidays and shorter summers. Working parents have limited vacation days. Therefore, when there’s an extra student holiday, parents need to pay for childcare or use one of their vacation days. During the summer recess, working parents have many more options, such as sending kids to visit relatives or enrolling in free/low cost programs.
Our beloved, hardworking teachers supplement their yearly salary with summer jobs: summer school, ushering, coaching, janitorial, security, bus driving, camp directors. Teachers also try to increase their expertise and salary during the summer by working on certifications and higher degrees.
As GUSD reviews the 2018-19 proposals, please honor the overwhelming majority vote of the community.
Marilyn Bayles
La Crescenta
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Dealing with the homeless
The homeless are all around us, living on sidewalks and public lands, jeopardizing themselves and our quality of life and straining our compassion. It’s a complex problem. Obviously more housing, especially affordable for low-income people is needed. Better public transportation would also help people get to jobs. California’s planned increase in minimum wage may help some people
A key need is for more mental health facilities coupled with a constitutional way to compel the mentally ill to seek and maintain treatment. Some jurisdictions have allowed homeless people with vehicles to use parking lots with restroom facilities. This has met with mixed results and is merely a temporary solution. New state laws requiring cities to allow second units, known as granny flats, in single-family home zones may eventually help.
But the basic problem is more people than the planet can sustainably handle. The fundamental solution is worldwide, voluntary family planning and equal education and opportunities for women and girls. That would eventually lead to population stabilization. Meanwhile we can support government agencies and nonprofit groups working on all the above and encourage our elected officials to redouble their efforts.
Sharon Weisman
Glendale
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Acquisition story lacked depth
I was interested to read the recent Glendale News-Press story on the purchase of the Verdugo Village apartment complex, which is located near where our family lives.
However, I was disappointed by the lack of depth in the reporting that went into this story. The News-Press only reported comments from the Palo Alto-based private equity group which purchased this 126-unit complex located near Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School. Interstate Equities purchases apartment complexes it sees as possessing strong returns for its investors and then eventually turns them around to the next buyer once it has made a profit. There’s nothing wrong with that, as that is how real estate and investment works.
However, it would have been helpful to ask Brenda Gibney of Interstate how much the firm planned to invest in the property and how much it planned to increase the rents/leases for the current tenants to cover those investments. Interstate isn’t upgrading the Verdugo complex with the sole purpose of making the living experience better for the current tenants; it is doing so to increase the value of the complex as a whole. Doing so would logically lead to higher rents which are already in the $2,500 to $2,800 range.
Glendale has undergone a radical housing transformation in the past five years as witnessed by the growth of high-end, multi-unit complexes in the city’s core, especially along Pacific Avenue. “Affordable housing” is fast becoming an oxymoron in this city. One would hope that the News-Press reporters would ask tougher questions of those involved in these changes — questions of both those who hold the purse strings and power and those who are impacted by these decisions made in faraway corporate offices.
Chris Davis
Glendale
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Hopes for the new year
1.) May the last several years of our ridiculously resilient ridge of high pressure that’s kept the rain away from Southern California continue to stay away — at least until this coming spring. (And may there be a bonanza of a poppy bloom at the Lancaster Poppy Preserve, accordingly!)
2.) May Pacific Bell start actually fixing our greater area’s pay telephones, rather than letting them go into disrepair, apparently (but wrongly) figuring on just about everyone having a mobile phone these days.
3.) May Central Park planners emulate the addition of Palmer Park’s new hard-top basketball courts by building back the essentially children’s tennis courts that were demolished to make room for the Adult Recreation Center. (Yes, that would mean once again planning on building the proposed, Armenian American Museum back to where it was originally planned — more or less across the street from Glendale Community College.)
4.) May disabled placard car parking holders, plus 30-minute parking patrons in general, find the walk from the east side parking lot at the still-under-renovation Central Library a no lengthier or hotter (the latter mostly an issue in the summertime) walk than when the main, east-side-only entrance was available.
5.) May the above-mentioned east-side parking lot — not to mention the south-side parking lot — continue to be available, in effect in perpetuity, rather than having no future choice but to park in another, Maryland Ave.-like, underground parking lot which would evidently be accessible only via a Colorado Street entrance (other than on the street).
Harvey Pearson
Los Feliz