La Cañada City Hall operations to move to Town Center next month
City Hall might be up and running from its new home at the Town Center in mid-February, according to remarks made on Tuesday during the first La Cañada Flintridge City Council meeting of the year.
The target moving date is scheduled for Feb. 15 to 18 during President’s Day weekend to take advantage of the holiday, according to City Attorney Mark Alexander. He also said City Hall may be closed Tuesday, Feb. 19, to help with the transition process for employees.
“That way we can afford the staff the opportunity to make sure they’re settled in,” he said. “That all the systems are running like the … computer system, phone system.”
Patrick DeChellis, director of Public Works, said work on the new building was “progressing very nicely.” Some of the things still left to do are installing fire alarms and making sure portions of the facility are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Regardless of whether or not the work will be completed by mid-February, the council and other city commissions will continue to meet at their current 1327 Foothill Blvd. home for the rest of that month. Alexander said they need to vacate the building by March 1.
If the new council chambers are not ready by then, council and commission meetings will be held at Lanterman Auditorium.
New Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Liaison
Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station Lt. Mark Slater will serve as the new liaison to the City Council after Capt. Chris Blasnek’s promotion earlier this month.
Slater, a 33-year veteran with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, made his debut during the council meeting and said he will be serving in an interim role while a more permanent replacement is found.
“When that will be we don’t know, there’s approximately 20 captain positions open on the department so [Sheriff Alex Villanueva] has his hands full,” he said.
Emergency Alert Notifications Systems Update
Chris Carey, the city’s new emergency services coordinator, also made his debut on Tuesday. Carey gave council members a rundown on the city’s emergency notification system Alert LCF.
“It’s an opt-in system that can dial all landline phones in the city as well as [through] email, text and a call on your cellphone,” he said.
In a test of the system that took place earlier that day an alert was sent out to around 11,000 households with a landline. The city only received 390 confirmations that the alert was received, according to Carey.
He said the next step will be asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the authority to send cellphone push notifications to residents during emergencies without requiring the need to be opted-in. He also said the city will work on adopting policy that will outline when, where and how alerts will be issued.
Ring doorbell program
The city will continue its partnership with doorbell-camera manufacturer Ring by providing a new round of rebates to purchase the home security system and is slated to start on Jan. 28.
However, while the previous rebates were exclusively for residential use, the latest round will open up to only businesses for the first half of the 120-day program. Residents can then apply for the voucher after 60 days.
“It was strictly a residential program up until now so we decided to go ahead and open this up to our businesses … to provide additional safety measures along our boulevard,” Walker said.
The city will provide a $50 per-commercial property/business space subsidy which will then be matched by Ring for a total of $100. About 395 rebates will be provided.
Twitter: @Andy_Truc
