Pasadena OKs Panel to Oversee Upgrades in Northwest Area

A permanent, seven-member Northwest Commission to oversee city improvements and services in Pasadena’s largest minority neighborhood was approved Tuesday by the Board of Directors.

Also approved were recommendations to improve conditions in the Northwest, including hiring a Northwest grant writer and an advocate/manager answerable to the city manager; establishing a city Housing Authority, and completing by 1993 major capital improvements planned more than five years ago.

“We, the staff, want to see this plan succeed and are going to devote massive resources of time and energy to make it happen,” City Manager Philip Hawkey said. “I think we understand the spirit. I think we’re on the same wavelength.”

The recommendations by the Northwest Task Force came after an eight-month study that found the city had not made the $35 million in capital improvements promised in the Northwest Plan.

Directors adopted the plan in 1985 as a new beginning for the low-income, predominantly black and Latino area.

But community activists demanded action after they said conditions had not changed much in the last five years.

The Northwest Task Force concluded that the city had failed to find grant, state or federal money for the area but tallied everyday city spending as part of the plan. Total capital spending was only $25 million, the task force said.

Some board members were reluctant to approve the recommendations without first assessing whether the city, with budget and staff restrictions, can actually carry them out.

“When we approve something in concept, no one quite knows what it means,” Director William Thomson said. He added that approval could create expectations that might not be met and the directors would find themselves “back where we started.”

Ellen Reynolds, who chaired the task force, said its members recognized that changes would be a long process, requiring monitoring by the new commission.