La Cañada, Burbank, Glendale among group of cities weighing formation of new regional council
On Monday, leaders from La Cañada Flintridge, Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena and South Pasadena considered the merits of forming a new “Arroyo Verdugo Council of Governments,” to give their communities more of a say in how regional transportation dollars are spent.
Doing so could mean cities ultimately leaving other, larger councils in which they currently hold membership — La Cañada, Pasadena and South Pasadena are part of the 31-city San Gabriel Council of Governments (SGV-COG), while Glendale and Burbank are members of the San Fernando Valley COG, which includes the city of Los Angeles.
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But the advantages of forming a cohort among geographically and politically like-minded municipalities could give smaller communities more leeway in determining how regional transportation projects are prioritized and building a more connective transit system between the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys.
The timing of such a transition is key as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority moves ahead in its review of potentially closing the 710 Freeway gap and ponders putting a $120-plus billion, 50-year Measure R2 sales tax before voters in 2017.
At Monday’s regular meeting of the Arroyo Verdugo Subregion Steering Committee, an informal group initially created to help coordinate regional transportation planning efforts in smaller foothill communities, members discussed the pros and cons of breaking off on their own.
La Cañada City Manager Mark Alexander and his South Pasadena counterpart, Sergio Gonzalez, presented a conceptual proposal for how the steering committee might formalize itself through a joint powers authority that would allow for the receipt and disbursement of funds, or by creating its own council of governments.
“There was a consensus among the (five) city managers at the professional level that there would be some commonalities that we could work toward,” Gonzalez told committee members. “We wanted to look at what types of issues could be an area we’d want to work as a COG within the Arroyo Verdugo area — the first would be transportation.”
Staff indicated that while most of the cities on the steering committee’s opposition to a 710 Freeway tunnel provided some impetus for considering a split (the San Gabriel Valley COG, for example, voted 16-7 in support of a tunnel), it was not the sole reason for considering such a move.
“There are, in the case of the San Fernando Valley COG, very large agencies which were essentially, perhaps, dwarfing the interests of some of the cities that were in the Arroyo Verdugo (subregion) that wanted to heard with a louder voice,” said Ann Wilson, a city of La Cañada Flintridge division manager and the steering committee’s executive director.
“The same thing is true in the San Gabriel Valley COG…we had some larger cities actually who felt that they were not being heard as much, not necessarily over the tunnel, but just over eastern versus western cities,” Wilson added.
Glendale Mayor Paula Devine, vice chair of the committee, expressed her hope that a COG might help participating cities coordinate a collaborative response not only to transportation, but to other regional issues, such as housing and integrated waste management.
“There are a lot of issues that we share, and I think this might be a good way of working together with each other and perhaps bettering our cities and communities,” Devine said.
Burbank Councilwoman Emily Gabel-Luddy said she is in favor of looking into the matter further, but requested more information on the costs and benefits of the committee’s different options. La Cañada Mayor Jon Curtis said he’d like to learn more about the functions and responsibilities a COG would have.
South Pasadena Councilwoman and committee chair Marina Khubesrian moved to continue discussion at the group’s next meeting in July, directing members to bring the information before their respective city councils for discussion in the meantime.
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
