Around Town: Message to JPL: You’re in La Cañada

JPL still thinks it’s in Pasadena.

For years old school La Cañadans would write, speak and grumble whenever a dateline erroneously referred to “JPL- Pasadena.” The late Don Mazen, a former associate editor of the Valley Sun, would go nuts. Chris Valente, a former city councilman, often spoke out, as did numerous city managers, civic leaders and residents.

To no avail. When La Cañada Flintridge incorporated in 1976, Pasadena lobbied, unsuccessfully, to keep JPL. Then, the La Cañada post office complained that it was too small to handle the mass quantities of JPL mail, so JPL kept its Pasadena mailing address.

In 1997, Bob Pool of the Los Angeles Times reported: “It’s too bad that scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab can’t seem to nail down their earthly location. JPL officials say their address is Pasadena. But the control center that the whole world is watching ... is really in La Cañada Flintridge.”

Fast forward to 2015 and the problem remains. The press release for this week’s annual JPL Open House proclaims, “NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, invites the public to its annual Open House on Oct. 10-11, 2015. The event is free of charge and takes visitors on a “ride” through the wonders of space.”

Wonders of space, indeed. Most of JPL’s 146 acres are located inside the city limits of La Cañada Flintridge.

Until last year, a JPL parking lot was located on land leased from the city of Pasadena.

Suddenly, the primary nexus, in the form of a lease, was canceled. Pasadena reclaimed the parking lot to be used as a “spreading basin to allow recycled water to filter into the groundwater supply, part of a larger effort to restore the Arroyo Seco to its natural state as open space.”

However, JPL still leases, and plans to continue leasing, a small piece of land from the city of Pasadena for parking. JPL also constructed a replacement parking structure on Windsor Avenue, which has an address in Altadena.

At the parking lot dedication ceremony, itself a uniquely La Cañada-style event, our own Mayor Dave Spence “gently” brought “attention to that important geographic distinction in his remarks to the audience.”

Don’t get me wrong, I can live with JPL’s need for fantasy. JPL wants to be inside Pasadena, like Caltech, my office and Pie ‘n Burger. But last week, to my dismay, I discovered that JPL and it’s mother ship, NASA, had gone too far.

Some La Cañadans like to watch the International Space Station traverse the clear skies of the Foothills. One problem, it used to take a rocket scientist to track the space station, so NASA built the cutest little website to assist the math-challenged with those calculations.

The website is called Spot the Station. Click on spotthestation.nasa.gov to see a list of “upcoming space station sighting opportunities for your location.” NASA calculated “sighting opportunities for over 6,700 locations worldwide.”

The website has a widget, which is a lay term for that thing on the website that isn’t a drop down menu. First, you select the country, eg. “United States,” Then, the state or region, such as California. After that, dozens of California cities are listed, cities you’ve never heard of, like Channel Islands National Park, Blythe, and Ferndale, plus Glendale, Pasadena and a place called Star Fleet Headquarters. Hundreds of California locations.

Guess who’s not on the list? You. You are not included. La Cañada Flintridge is not on the list.

The instructions say, “[i]f your specific city or town isn’t listed, pick one that is fairly close to you. The space station is visible for a long distance around each of the listed locations.”

Is this payback for 1976?

JPL tells us it is in Pasadena when it is not. JPL also says that Mission Control is located at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Maybe? Maybe not. Stranger things have happened.

Back here in La Cañada, you can spot the space station tonight, Oct. 8, at 7:14 p.m. The station will be visible for 2 minutes, with a maximum height of 11° . It appears 10 above northwest, and disappears 10 above north.

JPL do you read me?

ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada Flintridge resident and an attorney with Law Offices of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena. Follow her on Instagram @realanitabrenner, Facebook and on Twitter @anitabrenner.