Bradbury to Goldilocks: Bear Problems

Yep, believe it or not, little ol' Bradbury has made the news:

Authorities captured one of three bears that invaded the San Gabriel Valley foothill community of Bradbury, but no one was injured, officials said.

The first bear showed up in the area of Lemon Street about 8 a.m. The second bear arrived Monday afternoon, and its presence was noted by a homeowner because at least one chicken disappeared.

Ah yes, the classic bear detection mechanism; a chicken left idly wandering about the yard. Beware owners of aviation-challenged fowl, the bears are in town.

Monrovia Wakes in Quake

In case you slept through it, in the wee hours of the morning a tremblor weighing in at 3.4 on the Richter scale shook up our region last night, striking some five miles north of Monrovia.

Happily, the Associated Press says no one was hurt.

Affordable Housing Bunny to Visit ...Bradbury?!?

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is working on its Regional Housing Needs Assessment plan (RHNA), which is why the affordable housing bunny has been popping up in the news lately. The bureaucrats that be have a strong belief in the existence of the affordable housing bunny, and they want various foothill cities to celebrate the affable—but mysterious and seldom seen—rabbit as they do.

According to a Charles Cooper article in the Sierra Madre Weekly:

Arcadia, for example, will be asked to provide potential for 2,130 dwelling units, 881 of them low and very low income.

Monrovia has been assigned a goal of 562 additional units, 228 of them very low and low, and Pasadena 2,844 units, 1,153 of them low and very low income.

Sierra Madre is facing a call for 138 units, 58 of them low and very low income. Even Bradbury has an assigned a number, 35 units, 15 of them low and very low.

Bradbury?!? What are they supposed to do—build some "affordable" mansions? Build some cheap ugly duplexes and put them out of sight at the end of a long, gated driveway? Once again, I ask: does any one actually think that mandating "affordable" housing as we are now will do a damn thing in the grand scheme of things to help poor Californians buy a house? This is sheer economic stupidity.

Be sure to go to visit SCAG's RHNA page and peruse the acronym laden website of the thickly layered bureaucracy your tax dollars support. Tax dollars, ironically enough, that often come from the copious fees developers must pay in order to build a woodshed around these parts, which in turn causes the cost of housing to stay nice and high. In the meantime, be sure to support your bureaucracy's love of adding to the millions of pages of ink that regulate development in this state, often penned in the name of the environment, that also might be related to the high cost of housing in these parts. But who am I to question the bountiful goodness of the housing bunny?

MVN.TV

I'm not going to lie about how I found out about the San Gabriel Valley's Mountain Views News Magazine website, home of MVN TV, at www.mvn.tv. They cover Arcadia, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, even Bradbury [my personal fav] and—wait for it . . . wait for it—DUARTE. (Duarte, unfortunately, never gets mentioned by anyone in the media.)

There is currently a [video!] interview with Nick Conway of SGVCOG fame [OK, so fame is not the right word], on which I'll have more to say later on. If you live in the San Gabriel Valley, you should watch it.

Only downside is that as the MVN says:
Contrary to most media sources which push negative and sensational headlines, we keep our news positive. With so many good things happening in our community, we find no reason to obsess over the bad.

There are a lot of good things going on here, as Foothill Cities often recognizes. There are lots of local electeds who do a great job, our economy is excellente, and so forth and so on. But this sounds like they simply flatter local lawmakers, although the Conway interview does take some good rips at the way LA ignores the SGV.

The whole deal was really started by Steve Tobia. Click on that link to read his story, and go here for more info on MVN.

And as I said, I'm not going to lie that I found their website only because I was reading about how Sierra Madre is a melting pot of white people.

VFW Needs Artifacts of War

A Robert Parry emailed and ask me to post this a week ago; sorry it took me so long to get around to it.

VFW Post 2070 Asks Veterans to Contribute Artifacts
For “Mobile Museum” Project
Local Combat Veterans of All Wars And Their Families Are Asked to Lend Photographs, Uniform Items and Other Artifacts of Service to Educate Community About the Price of Freedom

Monrovia, February 7- Monrovia-Arcadia Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2070 is gathering pictures and artifacts from local combat veterans and their family members in order to create a traveling exhibit about the area’s history of military service. While the post is focusing its efforts on its own members – each of whom has served in combat – it is especially interested in receiving pictures and artifacts from family members of area service members from many years ago, such as World War I and II.

“This community has a long history of service, you can see this inthe memorials in Library Park. It is important that we, as veterans, preserve this history and tell others about the price of freedom,” said Wally Berg, Commander of Post 2070 and a Korean War veteran.

Items that have been loaned to the exhibit so far are from veterans of more recent conflicts, and include pictures of service men in Iraq, a fragment of an Improvised Explosive Device, a copy of an email home, an Iraq Campaign medal, a camouflaged Bible and field-worn cards regarding rules of engagement and casualty evacuation.

Entitled “Monrovians At The Front… Your History of Service” The display will offer exhibits from each conflict that the U.S. has been in since World War I, and will feature photographs, documents and artifacts of individual local residents’ combat experiences as well as the community’s experiences as a whole.

“We are seeking photographs and artifacts that people may have documenting things that happened here in Monrovia in support of World War I, WWII, and Korea,” said Robert Parry, the Post’s Junior Vice Commander, and a veteran of the war in Iraq. “Anything anybody has that they think would help tell the story of local veterans’ service will be appreciated.”

He added that all area veterans are invited to participate, whether they grew up in the area, or if they moved to town many years after their service. Siblings and children of veterans who have since passed away might have old photographs and artifacts, and they are encouraged to join in the project.

All artifacts will be considered to be loaned, and photographs, letters and other documents will be displayed only as photocopies, if the donor so desires. All artifacts will be considered loans, unless specifically donated. Each section will also include a list of are residents who have been killed in action.

When completed, the Post intends to display the exhibits in a mobile case that can be shown at area schools, loaned to local libraries or featured at appropriate gatherings. When not on loan, the exhibit will be on display at Post 2070 for the public to peruse. If possible, the post would like to have the display’s first exhibition by Memorial Day.

Anyone who is interested in loaning an artifact or photograph is encouraged to email Mr. Parry at rcjparry@gmail.com, or visit Post 2070 on Magnolia Avenue just north of Huntington Drive to speak to an officer.

ABOUT VFW POST 2070
Founded in 1931, Arcadia-Monrovia VFW Post 2070, located at the corner of Magnolia Ave. & Chestnut St. in Monrovia , offers comradeship and support to veterans of all the Nation’s wars. The Post’s programs support tomorrow’s citizens through school programs about the price of freedom, while it honors the warriors of years past and offers them a unique place to gather with those who have also paid that price. Founded in 1899 by veterans of the Spanish-American war, VFW today counts more than 2.4 million members, including the 250 comrades of Post 2070.

For Additional Information:
Robert Parry
Jr. Vice Commander
310-651-0231

Bradbury Gets A Zipcode

Buried deep within the recently passed Postal Reform Act:

SEC. 1009. ZIP CODES AND RETAIL HOURS.
(a) ZIP CODES.--Not later than September 30, 2007, the United States Postal Service shall assign a single, unified ZIP code to serve, as nearly as practicable, each of the following communities:
(1) Auburn Township, Ohio.
(2) Hanahan, South Carolina.
(3) Bradbury , California.
(4) Discovery Bay, California.

(Thanks to the Postal News Blog for alerting me to this development).

How does a city of about 950 residents living in 1.9 square miles get its own zipcode?

[$$$]

Bradbury is so small you may be unaware of its existence, mostly surrounded by Duarte (and east of Monrovia), although the town has been in the news as the site of the murder of Mickey Thompson and his wife. Jurors are deliberating now about what will happen to racing promoter Michael Goodwin, accused of murdering the former Bradbury residents.

Susan Carrier, special to the LA Times, sums the city [small collection of gated homes] up nicely in this old article:

Ask the locals what they like about their community and, invariably, these words crop up: "privacy," "tranquillity" and "serenity." About two-thirds of the 282 homes are behind guarded gates, adding a sense of seclusion. "We drive through the gates and enter a tranquil world," said resident Lorraine Weissman.

Oddly, all the money in Bradbury can't buy a website that doesn't party like its 1999. Then again, one gets the feeling that Bradbury isn't exactly looking to attract many new residents or the new development that would inevitably come with them.