Portantino's staff is making 'LemonAid' from lemons

Portantino’s staff is making ‘LemonAid’ from lemons

By Mark Kellam

Oct. 2, 2011 12 AM PT

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino’s (D-La Cañada Flintridge) staff members are turning their impending six-week-unpaid furloughs into an opportunity to educate constituents about how to access state services while his district and capitol offices are closed Oct. 21 to Nov. 30.

Portantino’s staff will hold an event called “LemonAid” from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at his Pasadena office, 215 N. Marengo Ave. Constituents are encouraged to bring food items to the event to be distributed to the needy in the community.

Portantino received notice from the Assembly Rules Committee in July that his offices would be closed and staff would be unpaid for six weeks because he was over budget. Portantino contends the move was political retaliation for his “no” vote on the state budget a month earlier.

He was the only Democrat to reject his party’s budget proposal.

For more information, call (818) 952-3432.

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Mark Kellam

Mark Kellam was city editor of the Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader. He joined Times Community News in July 2011 as the business-politics reporter and was promoted to city editor in January 2013. Previously, he was an editor at the Los Angeles Daily News and managing editor at Champion Newspapers in Chino, Calif. Prior to that, he was an editor at Amos Suburban Newspapers in Dayton, Ohio, for several years. Kellam holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University.