Altadena at an Intersection : Residents of the Foothill Town Don’t Want to Deal With Cityhood. But the Slaying of a Boy by a Stray Bullet Has Stirred Pained Thinking About the Future.

A few months back in Altadena, developer Andrew Oliver was awaiting his turn at the four-way stop where Lincoln Avenue and and Altadena Drive meet. Suddenly, he heard gunshots.

The angry coda to a nearby gang dispute, those unmistakable popping sounds sent him and other motorists ducking, pedestrians scrambling. A normal spring day turned into something less than normal.

Soon, the region would come to know of a new, senseless death: A 12-year-old boy felled by an errant gunshot.

Justin Richard died, everyone would learn, because he stepped off a school bus at the worst possible moment. Quarreling had crested; another person had become involved. Shots were fired and, mistakenly, one hit the Little Leaguer.

Three months later, much of Altadena still seems to be lingering at that intersection. Now, perhaps more than ever, residents wonder where the small town at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains is headed.

The shooting is “going to stay in the forefront of people’s minds for quite a while,” said Town Council member Greg Norden. “The death of a 12-year-old boy can have that effect on a community.”

Indeed, Richard’s slaying seems a seminal event here--one of those rare occurrences that gels emotion and shapes interpretations of the future. Some, the killing exasperated. Others it empowered. All, in some way, it changed.

“If you live close to where there’s been violence and where there’s been killings, you don’t want to be part of that” any more, longtime community activist Millie Lee said recently. She was loading her car, readying for a move to Las Vegas. “This stray bullet thing scares the hell out of me when I’m driving down the street.”

For years, Lee has stridently fought for improvements in Altadena, speaking with passionate insistence about suggested reforms. She smarts at her move in any way being framed as a surrender, yet has trouble distancing herself from the inevitable symbolism that comes with the departure of an activist.

“I don’t want to live where I can’t drive at night,” she said. “I don’t want to be out in the street in the daytime and [not] know what’s going to happen. I feel more safe in Vegas.”

Altadena is an unincorporated town, not a city. That means more than sheriff’s cruisers patrolling the streets. As a town, residents say, Altadena is also something of a state of mind. Here, most are willing to concede power to the county in the hope that they might largely be left alone.

“It’s quieter, it’s got a great collection of people and great architectural features,” Norden said. “There’s a lot of physical amenities for living here--being close to the mountains and being part of a community over 100 years old.”

Somehow, it explains why for many the word city just wouldn’t couple well with Altadena.

“If Altadenans [formed] a city, then they would have to take on responsibilities they don’t want,” said Lee. “And they don’t want them.” Ever since the distinction mattered, all Altadena annexation drives by neighboring Pasadena have been met with stringent opposition. Similarly, every home-grown incorporation drive has died. Neither the residents of the manicured, sprawling estates of east Altadena nor the owners of tightly packed west Altadena homes seem to want a change.

But with an eye to the future, town leaders say the souring county budget might eventually weaken residents’ reluctance on the incorporation issue. After all, of the county parks targeted in budget scale-backs, three sit inside the town boundary. And cuts in sheriff’s patrols would be most palpable in this, the county’s most urbanized unincorporated territory.

That won’t bolster any town’s image, say several Town Council members.

“Altadena is changing its view from an insular perception to one as being affected immediately by northern Pasadena and, to a larger degree, the greater Los Angeles area,” Norden said.

That means not only coming to terms with what Altadena has become, but also putting its bad parts in perspective, Oliver said.

“When you drive up Lincoln Avenue, you immediately see all those liquor stores,” he said, “and half a dozen people who hang out there every day, begging for money. That gives the perception of a dangerous community that is not really there.”

As a developer and 19-year resident, Oliver is involved in two starkly different efforts that look to change the landscape of Altadena.

One is a new gated community called La Vina, a 272-home development set for the top of Lincoln Avenue in west Altadena. It will have private parks, picnic areas and a private school, Oliver said. Some of the homes will sell for about $500,000, he said.

Down the hill in a struggling portion of Lincoln, the second change is slated to occur: a revitalization project that looks to put supermarkets and pharmacies in an area that Oliver says sorely needs them.

Together, he said, the projects “should combine to do a lot of positive things for west Altadena.”

But many in town see the first project as a sign of how lack of local control can hurt an unincorporated area. An environmental group calling itself Friends of La Vina has opposed the development for years, saying the environmental study does an inadequate job of addressing fire safety issues, flooding, destruction of wildlife habitat and traffic escalation. They also argue that the project would destroy historic buildings that once belonged to La Vina Sanatorium.

Still, for many residents, the specter of the Richard tragedy lingers over the enthusiasm for Altadena’s future. It tempers the broad idea that a supermarket is a panacea for anything, reminding residents that their community is a small town with city problems that they must confront together.

“Altadena has a very good chance of becoming a very excellent place to live,” says Walter Martin. “The people coming in are going to bring a lot with them.” Elsewhere in the town, he says, “I’d like to see people upgrade their homes and stay.”

For Oliver, the shooting gave a very sad kind of reinforcement, illustrating the need for drastic economic change in the lower portion of town.

“My boys play on a Little League team,” he said. “They had played against [Richard] at the park. Those are the kinds of things that are really troubling, when you have to go home and explain [a shooting] to your 10-year-old.”

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Altadena Inside Out Ethnic Makeup: Latino: 14% Black: 43% Asian: 4% White: 38% Other: 1% *

People Population: 36,064 Households: 12,075 Average household size: 2.95 Median age: 34.6 *

Average Yearly Household Expenditures *

Money and Work Median household income: $46,638 Median home value: $234,100 Self-employed: 1,532 Employed workers (16 and older): 17,759 Car- poolers: 2,336 Source: Claritas Inc. Household expenses are average for 1994. All other figures are for 1990. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number. TOO LATE NOW: Pasadena several times has moved unsuccessfully to annex Altadena and thus get back what it had more than 100 years ago. Believing its altitude too high for benefit from the Arroyo Seco, the city of Pasadena in 1885 sold 1,400 acres of sloping foothills to brothers Fred and John Woodbury, along with other investors.

ONE UPSMANSHIP: The feature that made Pasadena give up on the land also gave settlers of the high ground a chance to sneer at the city below, naming the town Altadena, meaning literally “higher than Pasadena.” Actually, the name was borrowed from a nursery at the end of Lincoln Avenue.

*

WHOSE FIRE? These days, Altadena’s name might be most closely linked with the catastrophic fire of Oct. 27, 1993. Set by a transient trying to warm himself, the blaze surged through 5,000 acres, destroyed 126 buildings and damaged 44 others. Though it quickly was dubbed the “Altadena fire,” the vast majority of the damage was in the neighboring unincorporated area of Kinneloa. Only 13 structures were destroyed or damaged in Altadena. Of those 11 have been rebuilt and two have plans pending. *

LIGHTS PLEASE! One of the town’s longest-standing traditions, Christmas Tree Lane, is heading into its 75th year. During the holiday season, residents transform Santa Rosa Avenue between Altadena Drive and Woodbury Road with 15,000 twinkling lights and masses of evergreens. *

BOOKWORMS: Altadena might not have a city government, but it does have one of the two library districts in Los Angeles County. That might not mean a lot to most people, but it has plenty of importance to Altadenans; 85% of them voted in favor of a library tax last year, giving themselves one of the best- financed libraries in the county. *

THE GREAT INCLINE: Altadena was once home to numerous hotels and chalets nestled in the San Gabriel Mountains and reached via the Mt. Lowe Railway, a six- mile, Alpine- style rail link that ascended 3,300 feet to Crystal Springs on Mt. Lowe. It was completed in 1895 and named for its owner, Prof. Thaddeus S.C. Lowe. Its scenic route was dotted with resorts. Service was discontinued in 1936 after the Alpine Tavern at Crystal Springs was gutted by fire.