Duarte

Remember the short jockey [redundant] who wanted to build the tall house in Duarte? The story made the national rounds about a month ago. Well, the city council said no. Emanuel Parker has the story in the SGVT:

More than a dozen residents spoke against the plans at the public hearing, saying they don't want Duarte to look like Arcadia, San Gabriel or Monterey Park, claiming those cities allow mansions to be squeezed onto small lots.

Hmmmm. Not sure what to make of that.

Anyhow, the story is making the national rounds again, although it appears to be a more limited engagement than the first time around.

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.

The Don of the Foothill Cities

It's not much, but Duarte gets so precious little media coverage, it merits attention. According to the Star-News, a statue of Andres Avelino Duarte will be revealed to the public this Saturday across from City Hall.

Who? Well, besides giving his name to the city he founded just east of Monrovia, Duarte originally held more than 7,000 acres of land in the San Gabriel Valley, including the cities of Arcadia, Azusa, Baldwin Park, Bradbury, Duarte, Irwindale and Monrovia, as the Star-News notes. The city website has the historical dirt on Duarte:

Andres Duarte was born at Mission San Juan Capistrano, in Alta California in November 1805. He joined the Mexican army at age 16, and was eventually assigned to Mission San Gabriel responsible for monitoring the outer lands of the Mission. In his early thirties he was transferred to the Mission San Gabriel garrison and assigned to protect the Mission property from San Gabriel to San Bernardino. It was then that he grew fond of the area adjacent to the Rio Azusa, now known as the San Gabriel River, along the foothills of the mountains.

After hanging up his weapons, Duarte was on the receiving end of a generous grant from Governor Juan Alvarado, and the rest is history. The bronze statue will be officially unveiled at 1pm, on Saturday.

Duarte Gets Some Love

I've complained more than once that Duarte never gets much media coverage. And when it does, well . . . recently I read a Marc Lifsher LAT article about workman's comp that began with the story of a man injured while "clearing a sewer line in Duarte"; then there is the Duarte resident recently convicted, in the words of Ruby Gonzales in the Whittier Daily News, "of beating, strangling and throwing an El Monte man down a mountainside."

So I was shocked to see a more serious, Duarte-centric story in the SGV Trib by Emanuel Parker about a jockey in the especially nice part of town who wants to build a little higher than zoning laws allow—this is making national rounds. And it was nice to see another article by Emanuel Parker in the SGV Trib about Duarte Mayor Lois Gaston's 2007 State of the City speech, in which Gaston "credited city staff with cutting $800,000 from the city budget. The city now has a projected surplus of $74,200 with just under $5.6 million in reserve, she said." Mayor Gaston is pretty happy these days—just listen to her.

Helped by a new "A-" credit rating that will enable a money saving restructuring of redevelopment agency debt, as well as landing a new Best Buy that will generate lots of precious sales tax revenue, as well as the possibility of getting some federal gold for the gold line, the city is well poised to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

So the SGV Trib also ran a glowing op-ed entitled "50 years worth celebrating," refering to Mayor Gaston as "one of the Valley's most dedicated and capable mayors," which reads like a city press release. And you know, I think Duarte and the powers that be over there deserve a good portion of all this.

As I've mentioned before, Duarte deserves kudos for being on top of that whole podcast thing. And I hear their local Senor Fish has great ceviche.

At the same time, however, Duarte (along with other foothill cities) deserves more frequent, serious coverage in the local media generally, be it good or bad, focusing on the most significant political issues in the city. Without such coverage, there is no way of telling if there is "another side of the story" that needs to be told, or if and when city press releases need some qualifying.

Duarte Podcasts

Although I often complain that Duarte is never mentioned in the media, the city does a fairly decent job of marketing itself through its podcasts. Yep, you read me right. They are a bit ahead of the curve on that front.

Foothill Pages

Azusa, Duarte, Glendora, Monrovia, are [were?] all covered by Foothill Pages, yet another attempt at a local website.

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

Actual News About Duarte?!?

No, not really. But this is actually a pretty good post from an LA blogger trying to figure out the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. As she mentions, John Fasana, City Council Member of Duarte is involved with such things, helping to counter the LA-centric nature of the transportation bureaucracy.

More SGV Food

One link to an SGV food related question and one link to lots of reviews of SGV food here. This review site covers plenty of restaurants in Duarte, Monrovia and Arcadia. (Did you know there is a Canadian restaurant in Monrovia?)

Another review here: "At the moment, though, the Kitchen may serve my favorite dim sum in the San Gabriel Valley, the most carefully prepared, the freshest. The rice noodles are gooier, the fried sticky-rice capsules cracklier, the steamed shrimp dumplings crunchier than ever." Another one here: "I will drive quite a distance simply to eat good food. If I want really good Vietnamese food, I go to Little Saigon. If I want really good Chinese food, I head to the San Gabriel Valley. So I've always been a little mystified by the popularity of Golden Deli in San Gabriel."

A Happy New Year for the 210 Updated

The 210 will be completed by the end of this year, but we'll have to wait another [insert profanity here] few years for it to link directly to the 215, according to Imran Ghori of the Press Enterprise.

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Fred Ortega's Daily News article tells why "[l]ocal cities are not giving up their fight to improve one of the most clogged and dangerous freeway junctions in the San Gabriel Valley," the 10/605 interchange. "Duarte Councilman John Fasana, a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board," was at a recent meeting of local officals who support upgrading the interchange.

Pinching like the Grinch (plus anti-bear legislation!)

Always hard to find much in the way of Duarte news, which isn't a good sign for residents trying to keep an eye on things. In any event, Emanuel Parker of the Pasadena Star tells us why there are no Christmas lights at city hall this year and how the council just passed a trash can ordinance to help minimize bear activity.