Mailbag: Mayor helps ring in 100th
On Sept. 21, our neighborhood celebrated the 100th birthday of Violet Harrington, who is de facto grandmother to all of her neighbors and friends due to her unconditional love for all of us.
She was touched to receive commendation and congratulations from the mayor of the city of Glendale, Paula Devine.
I would like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Devine for her kind words and closeness to our community.
Yervand Grigoryan
Glendale
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Forum to host local candidates
While the national election is contentious, exciting, frustrating and boring (at least to me), we need to pay closer attention to our local candidates. “All politics is local” is a common political phrase that is mainly associated with the late politician Tip O’Neill. Now, for the first time in years, residents of the 43rd state Assembly district and of the 5th Supervisorial district will be choosing new officials since the incumbents are termed out.
A candidates forum, sponsored by Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn., will have Councilwoman Laura Friedman and City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian, who are in the runoff for Assembly, plus Darrell Park, running for county supervisor, answering questions and giving their respective views on why they are the best qualified. Park’s opponent, Kathryn Barger, was invited but has declined to attend. Randy Carter is moderator. I expect this to be a lively evening.
It will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 5, at New Life Christian Church, 1020 W. Kenneth Road, and is open to everyone who lives within the districts. I urge you all to attend since we are picking people who could represent us for many years.
Carol Brusha
Board of Directors, NWGHA
Glendale
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Rent prices are set by owners
Re: “Housing Authority to address affordable housing,” Aug. 20. Los Angeles has been ranked consistently one of the most expensive cities in the country in which to live, as shown by the rent prices in both L.A. proper and surrounding cities, and Glendale is not immune to this. With a median monthly rent of $1,309, the cost of living in Glendale is quite high; even with minimum wage raised to $10.30, many people are still unable to afford housing within the city.
Aside from rent control, development-impact fees and inclusionary zoning ordinances are options to help lower rent, but neither are perfect options. Development-impact fees fund housing projects, which would take years to come to fruition; inclusionary zoning is delicate to navigate because of the Hawkins Rental Housing Act in Los Angeles that allows landlords to set their own housing rates.
Landlords say that rent control hurts them, but looking at the already high rents in Glendale, how much would lowering rent rates actually hurt them? Over half of the people who rent housing in Glendale spend more than a third of their income on rent, the landlords, who are the ones gaining money, don’t seem to have much to lose. Clearly, something needs to be done about housing affordability in Glendale. But perhaps the opinions of the people who set the prices in the first place are not the most useful when thinking of options to comprehensively increase housing affordability within the city.
Katherine Hall
La Crescenta
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Spanish program means to inspire
I am the co-author and associate publisher of “¡Qué chévere!,” the program mentioned in your article, “Responding to parental concerns, school board rethinks Spanish-language textbooks.”
I want to thank the Spanish teachers of Glendale United School District for supporting our program. Aligned with the highest academic standards, “¡Qué chévere!” is designed to be a resource to teachers who work tirelessly to inspire a love of the Spanish language and culture in their classrooms. The topics are culturally appropriate and relevant to students, and the context we provide is necessary to fully understand what they express.
We take pride in our 60-year track record of developing educational materials for language learning in classrooms across the country and give extremely careful consideration to all the content we create. We are committed to building on that experience well into the future and will continue to work with the Glendale community to address the feedback.
Alejandro Vargas
EMC School
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Rude incident at gas station
The incident began simple enough.
Today I drove into a local gas station and pulled to the forward pumps to get fuel. On the other side of the pump island was a woman whose car faced in the opposite direction, and who had just started her car to leave.
At that moment, a white SUV pulled into aisle opposite, forcing the woman’s car to come to a stop. A big burly dark-haired man emerged from his SUV and walked toward the pumps.
Dumbfounded, I glanced at the woman driver. She shook in disgust.
As the man reached for a fuel hose, I shouted out, “Hey, buddy, she was leaving. Show a little consideration and let her out first.”
The guy looked at me, pointed to the woman’s car and replied, “She too far forward. I have to pull hose all way to back of my car.”
Surprised by his response, I repeated my entreaty. The man muttered something obscene under his breath and removed the gas cap from his vehicle.
All I could do was look at the woman, and say, “I’m sorry. I tried.”
The woman then had to back her car out onto a busy street; and run the risk of potential danger from oncoming traffic. When I left the station, all I could think of was that man’s arrogant and inconsiderate action did nothing but leave bad tastes in the mouths of two people. It is not a way to improve community relations.
Howard H. Gething
Glendale
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Confusion over Trump support
In Monday night’s debate Donald Trump said not paying federal income taxes makes him smart. Does that mean that those of us who pay them are stupid? Or that he thinks we are?
When Hillary Clinton accused him of rooting for the housing crisis because it would help his bottom line, he said, “That’s called business.” Take that, you poor suckers who lost your houses to foreclosure when the housing market collapsed!
I can understand why those who have been left behind by the information economy are looking to the next president to help them get ahead. I can understand why those who are still struggling to get back where they were before the Great Recession are looking to the next president to help them regain financial security. What I will never understand is why any of them are looking to Donald Trump.
Mary-Lynne Fisher
La Crescenta