La Cañada History: Residents cry fowl over wild peacocks
Ten Years Ago
A panel discussed the need to add more science and math teachers in American schools to keep up with global competition during a special public hearing held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. Among the participants were then-state Sen. Jack Scott, then-state Assemblywoman Carol Liu (today a state senator), astronaut Sally Ride and then-state Sen. Tom Torlakson, a former science teacher who now serves as state superintendent of public instruction.
Twenty Years Ago
La Cañada Flintridge resident Louie Bilowitz, the La Cañada High School boys’ varsity soccer coach, was the recipient of one of six “Coach of the Year” awards handed out in January 1996 by the National Soccer Coaches Assn. of America during a convention held in Philadelphia, Pa.
Thirty Years Ago
A group of residents whose homes were in the Angeles Crest Highway area asked the La Cañada Flintridge City Council to “do something” about the wild peafowl living in their neighborhood. In particular, they objected to the birds “screaming” all night long during their mating season and generally making pests of themselves. The peafowl had their defenders, though, who maintained they were beneficial to the community. The city decided at that point to continue to let the peafowl roam rather than to relocate them.
Forty Years Ago
A new limited partnership that had been organized to revitalize the La Cañada Flintridge Country Club began the work with a $750,000 project to redesign and refurbish the clubhouse and construct five new tennis courts adjacent to the two existing courts. The target date for completion of the work was set for May 1976.
Fifty Years Ago
In January 1966, La Cañada’s Freeway Action Committee sent a five-page letter to state transportation officials urging that the proposed Foothill (210) Freeway be routed around La Cañada rather than through the middle of it. The letter pointed out that 7,000 residents had signed a petition against the project. The reasons given for their objection included the following: by eliminating hundreds of houses it would hurt the tax base of the recently formed La Cañada Unified School District, the community would be greatly disrupted during the land acquisition and construction phases, there would be a loss of about 9% of the valley’s residences, a serious smog problem would be created, the valley’s beauty would be damaged, activities of at least 12 of the 18 local schools and churches would be impaired and there would be an uncompensated loss in the value of residential properties alongside or near the freeway.
Sixty Years Ago
It was decided that a 200-foot wide strip of land would separate the new Descanso Gardens parking lot from Encinas Drive as part of a compromise arrived at by county officials and about 50 neighbors of the public gardens.
Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.