Month: November 2007

In my Northwest neighborhood, when you want to get rid of a large (but still useable) item, you put it out on the parkway – that area between the sidewalk and the street. Yeah, it may be a little tacky, but useable items disappear overnight.

Earlier this year, I got rid of two wooden lawn chairs using this very method. They needed a good cleaning, but they weren’t broken. They were gone the next morning.

Last week, I put out the base for a full size bed. Not a box springs, just a wooden box covered in thin polyester. It was not stained; it was not broken. You wouldn’t want to sleep on it, but you could put a mattress on top of it in lieu of the mattress-on-the-floor routine.

The next morning, it was still there. Panic. I says to meself: Even if I can get this thing in the car, where am I going to take it? I gave it one more night. Still there.

I wised up and put it on Craigslist under the “free” category. Early the next morning, I heard a truck roll up. I grabbed the camera…

Whew.

Then I got this in the mail:

Yep, I got written up by code enforcement. Once they see something planted on your parkway that is not going to grow there, they give you a week to get rid of it.

The photo above shows my 2nd notice. Code enforcement sent the first notice via registered mail, return receipt requested, at a cost of $5.41. I had to go to the post office to pick it up, so I actually got the 2nd notice first.

On one hand, it’s nice that code enforcement are doing their job, because trash dumping has been a problem on some Northwest streets—and not just neighbors trying to get rid of stuff. I’m talking about trucks driving in from elsewhere to make a deposit and then scurry away (back to Altadena some say, but I don’t want to enflame that old internecine strife).

On the other hand, this is one more clue that low-income people have had to move out of Pasadena. I have no doubt that five years ago it would have disappeared overnight. Ten years ago, I could have knocked on the door of my neighbors and offered it to them. But those neighbors are gone now.

Now my neighbors drive late model vehicles and have planted their parkways with drought-resistant ground cover. Good for them.

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Section 8 in Pasadena update: The last open enrollment period was October 1, 2002 – July 15, 2004. The last of those applicants are now receiving housing.

The crack reporting by K-Todd Ruiz in today’s Pasadena Star-News has got my inner curmudgeon riled up this morning. First, throwing away perfectly good furniture because it is “not up to contemporary standards in ergonomics” sounds like something the folks at Sharper Image would say. Oh, the city “tried for a while to give it away…” but now it’s going to the landfill. Sarah Reingewirtz’ photo in the print edition is priceless—a perfectly good red desk chair sailing through the air—headed for the Scholl Canyon landfill.

Imagine the scenario: The city moves out of city hall for the retrofit and puts everything in storage. Then it’s time to move back in—but can’t possibly move that horrible old furniture back into city hall’s palatial splendor. I mean, is there anything grosser than putting old furniture on new carpeting?

Besides that, what kind of long-term planning is behind buying a building for $4 million in the year 2000, using it for “storage and some office space,” then tearing it down seven years later?

Ruiz mentions in the article that the “site had been once identified as a desirable location for a new elementary school for the PUSD before declining enrollment led the district to close, not open, schools.”

I remember what a hot issue it was back then. Most of the kids who go to public school live in the Northwest area, but the elementary schools are spread all over town, so kids have to get bused out of their neighborhoods. My own kids made the 5 mile trek to Allendale Elementary (now closed) for years. When PUSD thought it might need more space, there was no question that a new elementary school had to be built in Northwest Pasadena.

That brought back memories of the elementary school that used to be at the corner of Lincoln Ave and Orange Grove Blvd. — which was torn down to build the post office.

Since 2000, schools have closed, and the city, which clearly bought the building to appease Northwest residents, will now tear down the building to expand Robinson Park.

Yes, Robinson Park is too small. It was too small back when my own kid played t-ball with West Pasadena Little League in the early 1990’s. So fine if it gets expanded.

I’m just suffering from a case of whiplash. How is it possible that we went from needing an elementary school (or the perception that we needed one) to closing five of them a few short years later?  The city plunked $4 million to solve a problem that wasn’t a problem.

Who *wasn’t* noticing the loss of Section 8 housing? Who wasn’t noticing rising rents and low-income people moving out of the city?