City Director Will Run for Funds

Pasadena City Director Chris Holden, a 6-foot-8 former San Diego State University basketball forward, says long-distance running is not exactly his event.

But today, Holden, 30, will join 15,000 other runners competing in the Los Angeles Marathon. The marathon is Holden’s first. It’s also a personal $10,000 fund-raising effort to benefit the Pasadena Recreation and Parks Foundation.

Holden has secured corporate sponsors that include Kaiser Permanente, the Doubletree Hotel, the Holiday Inn and the Moseley Co. Proceeds are slated for the Pasadena Youth Boxing Program, Pasadena Running Roses and Villa-Parke Youth Soccer League.

* Ellen Reynolds, former chairwoman of Pasadena’s Northwest Task Force, will serve as the city’s interim Northwest manager.

City Directors appointed Reynolds to oversee development and city services in the city’s largest minority neighborhood.

Reynolds will receive $6,080 monthly through August, for a total of $36,480, until a permanent staff member is found.

The city created the position after the task force determined that the city had failed to provide $35 million in improvements to Northwest Pasadena as slated under a five-year program.