Candidates Give Views on Development

Seven candidates are running for the La Canada Flintridge City Council:

* Elizabeth Blackwelder, 69, is a real estate investor and has been a resident for 40 years. Blackwelder is president of the La Canada Flintridge Trails Council. She served as a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy Reserve Hospital Corps and as president of the La Canada Flintridge Guild of Huntington Hospital.

Blackwelder opposes the proposed Sport Chalet shopping center in its present form. She has said the City Council must allow merchants to become more active in plans for redevelopment along Foothill Boulevard.

Regarding the city’s general plan, Blackwelder has said maintaining the rural residential character of the community is one of her primary campaign issues. “If I am elected to the City Council, I will have the city’s general plan re-evaluated to protect our city from further harmful development.”

* Judy Breitman, 49, is divisional vice president for special events and public relations for May Co. California and has been a resident for 25 years.

Breitman is a city planning commissioner. She has been a businesswoman for 20 years and has management experience.

Breitman cast the only vote against the Planning Commission’s approval of the conditional use permit for the Sport Chalet and has called the project “a mega-mall totally inappropriate in size and design for La Canada.”

She called the general plan “very reactionary and very general. I would say we need a new master plan for the whole city.”

* James T. Edwards, 45, owns a local insurance brokerage and has been a resident for 12 years.

Edwards is a public safety commissioner and has 20 years of business experience. He cites extensive volunteer work in the community, including 16 years with both the Los Angeles Reserve Deputy Sheriff’s and the Montrose Search and Rescue Team.

Edwards has said he believes in the normal checks and balances through which the Sport Chalet plans have passed, and he believes that the council must move ahead with the project. “I’m for the process that has brought us up to the point where we are now.”

Edwards has said he sees no problem with the existing general plan because it is not a static document. “It is something the council will continuously modify and work on as the needs of the community change.”

* Joan Feehan, 58, is an incumbent and has been a resident for 22 years. Feehan served as mayor during one of her four years on the City Council.

“I believe in the Sport Chalet project. It’s a quality project, good for the city.”

Feehan has said the existing general plan and the final report of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Foothill Boulevard Development are sufficient to meet the city’s redevelopment needs. “Before we go out and reinvent the wheel, let’s take a good look at the documents we have.”

* John W. Hastings, 61, is a former councilman. He owns a local hardware store and has been a resident for 35 years.

Hastings was appointed to the City Council and served as mayor pro tem in 1985. He is also a former planning commissioner.

“I support the Sport Chalet in the form it was passed by the Planning Commission, with the conditions attached.” Hastings has said the retail center can be the beginning of a better commercial area along Foothill Boulevard.

Hastings has said the general plan’s goals are as valid today as when the document was adopted 10 years ago and has suggested that the city needs to tighten standards for achieving them.

* Peter G. Kudrave, 52, is an architect who has lived in the city for 16 years.

Kudrave has served on the board of directors of the American Institute of Architects. He has worked with Paramount and Burbank Studios to create master plans.

“However objectionable, the proposed Sport Chalet is but the latest manifestation of a far more insidious problem. That problem is La Canada Flintridge’s lack of a long-term master plan.” In January, Kudrave mailed to residents his own plans for a smaller design for the proposed project.

Kudrave has said the city needs “a far-sighted master plan, based on the input of our residents and local businessmen. A master plan can be the catalyst for commercial success.”

* Melvin Ricks, 55, has a dental practice in Glendale and has been a resident for 20 years.

Ricks has been involved in several construction projects and has built five houses in the city, including his own residence. He has been the subject of an ongoing series of legal disputes with the city concerning alleged building violations. Ricks has said his prime motivation in running for the City Council is to clear his name.

On the Sport Chalet, Ricks said, he is “on both sides. It could have been done much better.”

Although he did not refer directly to the general plan, Ricks has said he supports both residential redevelopment and commercial growth.