The 818 Now

There is a Blue moon tonight, Dec. 31, 2009.  This full moon is called a blue moon because it is the second full moon this month.

December 31, 2009, brought a Blue Moon to Southern California. Link for story is from the L.A. Times.com website. (Raul Roa/News-Press)

The La Canada Flintridge float entry in the 2010 Rose Parade readies for its trip to Pasadena Thursday evening. (Courtesy Laurie Welch)

The monstruous 35 feet tall green origami dragon stretched its wings in the mid-afternoon sunlight, finally free from hiding underneath the Interstate 210 highway on Hampton Road in La Cañada.

The 2010 La Cañada Flintridge Rose Parade float made its first public appearance since its completion at 2 p.m. on Thursday as the crews and workers moved it from out underneath its construction spot, in the Flintridge Prep parking lot, in preparation for the march to Pasadena. A crowd gathered to take pictures and video record the event while the workers put on the finishing touches and tinkered with the motion mechanisms.

“It’s a lot of fun to see it built and then the finished product,” said float construction worker Mike O’Connor, as he raced to screw in a row of three feet tall flowers onto the side of the float. “We’ve been working at this site all week.  It’ll be fun to see it [in the parade].”

O’Connor has worked on floats for 20 years and on the La Cañada float for the past 11.  He first started working on the float in the spring.

The float will leave La Cañada at 8 p.m. to get to its spot in the back of the Rose Parade on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena.  Worker and former La Cañada Flintridge Rose Parade Association President Sharlyn French said it’ll get there shortly before midnight, traveling at speeds up to 5 miles per hour.  A small convoy of 25-40 people, featuring designated float workers and Sheriff’s Dept. deputies, will escort the float.

Titled “Scissored Wizard,” the float features a purple-robed wizard waving his wand and bringing to life a green origami dragon.

Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball player Cassie Pappas has done plenty throughout  her first three-plus seasons.

The senior guard has earned her share of All-Area, All-Pacific League and All-CIF accolades.

She accomplished one more significant feat Thursday afternoon in helping Crescenta Valley beat St. Paul, 58-32, in the 11th-place game of the Beverly Hills/Harvard-Westlake Tournament at Beverly Hills High.

In the contest, Pappas eclipsed the 1,500-point barrier for her career by scoring 26 points.

Pappas scored 128 points in five tournament games, or 25.6 per game, and earned a spot on the all-tournament squad.

She has 1,501 career points entering next Tuesday’s Pacific League opener against host Burroughs.

The La Cañada Valley Sun will be tweeting live, for the first time, from the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.

Log on anytime after 5:30 a.m. for the live feed of the events going on as they happen on the parade route.

Log on to the Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/valleysun to follow us.

Former Glendale resident Brandon McCarthy is one of several options to be slotted into the back end of the Texas Rangers’ starting pitching rotation for 2010, according to a report on Yahoo! Sports on Thursday.

With the top of the rotation fairly set with new acquisition Rich Harden and returners Scott Feldman and Tommy Hunter, McCarthy, who went 7-4 with a 4.62 earned-run average in 17 starts last season for Texas, is reported to be under consideration for one of the remaining two spots along with Neftali Feliz, Erik Hurley, Derek Holland and C.J. Wilson.

A recent report in the Boston Globe also linked the Rangers to free-agent starting pitcher Jon Garland.

With a grueling month’s worth of basketball tournaments now complete, six area high school basketball teams are gearing up for the beginning of Pacific League action.

League play will tip off at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

In boys’ competition, Crescenta Valley will host Burroughs, Hoover will be at Arcadia and Glendale will take on visiting Pasadena.

In girls’ competition, Crescenta Valley will travel to Burroughs, while Hoover will be home for Arcadia and Glendale will be at Pasadena.

The California Department of Transportation will close several roads for the 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade, which is tomorrow morning.

The following streets will be closed  from Thursday to Friday.

Glendale (134) Freeway

• 8 p.m. to 11 a.m. – East Orange Grove Boulevard offramp.
• 2 a.m. to 12 p.m.  – West Orange Grove Boulevard onramp.

Pasadena Avenue

• 8 p.m. to 10 a.m. – All lanes on Pasadena Avenue from Columbia Street to Del Mar Boulevard.

Foothill (210) Freeway

• 8 p.m. to 4 p.m. – East- and west Sierra Madre Boulevard off-ramps.
• East and west Sierra Madre Boulevard offramps will be closed from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 2 to Jan. 3. 

From The Los Angeles Times:

Four months after L.A. County Fire Capt. Tedmund Hall and Spc. Arnaldo Quinones died during the massive Station Fire, new details of the tragedy have emerged, along with unsettling questions of how and why the crews were allowed to stay in harm’s way, and whether commanders failed to grasp in time the danger the camp faced.

A Times investigation of the incident found:

–A U.S. Forest Service e-mail written shortly after the deaths addresses the hazards of the fire and refers to the loss of “two people who stayed too long.” The e-mail was obtained by The Times along with other records that show that the camp crews were not formally assigned to the Station operation and thus might have been excluded from the commanders’ broader strategy of defending critical structures in the forest while ensuring the safety of firefighters. The battle against the fire was managed jointly by the county and the U.S. Forest Service.

–The unusual disconnect between the camp and those leading the attack on the biggest fire in county history is evident in dispatch logs that reveal scant contact between the Mt. Gleason crews and the command center. Experts say that violates long-established firefighting protocols that require all agencies to work together on major blazes in the forest, maintaining good communications with each other and sharing information about fire behavior, weather conditions and escape routes.

–The Station fire logs contain no calls to evacuate the camp or any effort to send help as the flames raced toward it. And daily government summaries of the firefight do not list the camp, a cluster of converted military buildings, among the many properties that commanders considered imperiled.

Read Paul Pringle’s full story here.

The California League of Conservation Voters gave all area Republicans low ratings on its annual environmental score card released in December.

The score card accounted for lawmakers’ votes for or against 22 bills singled out by the organization as “high priority.”

Among those bills monitored by the group was a package of proposals to create a state mandate that 33% of energy comes from renewable energy sources by 2020, a plan that was eventually vetoed.  Read the rest of this entry »

DOWNTOWN — Amid a local economy sacked by underperforming tax revenues, slumping home values and high unemployment, the biggest winners in the Rose Bowl and BCS National Championship Game in Pasadena won’t be taking the field.

The 121st Rose Parade and two post-season college football games are expected to produce an economic impact of $350 million to $400 million for greater Southern California, according to the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and past economic studies.

“This has to be an economic pleasure for the Southern California region,” said Bill Flinn, chief operating officer for the Tournament of Roses. “This year there’s no doubt about the fact. You have two games, four out-of-state teams and a parade that drives hundreds of thousands of people to the area.”

A new rotating collegiate bowl system for the first time brings to Pasadena two major bowl games within a week of each other.

A further economic boon to the area comes in the fact that neither USC nor UCLA are competing in the games, said Bruce Ackerman, president and chief executive of the Valley Economic Alliance.

He noted that not only are the competing colleges from outside Southern California, but the closest school is more than 800 miles away in Eugene, Ore.

Read on.

Click on the photo to see a gallery of all the action.

The Ohio State University Marching Band practices at Glendale City College in Glendale on Thursday, December 31, 2009. (Raul Roa/News-Press)

Friday: New Year’s Day

Jan. 18: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Feb. 15: Presidents’ Day

May 31: Memorial Day

July 5: Independence Day (observed)

Sept 6: Labor Day

Nov. 11: Veterans Day

Nov. 25: Thanksgiving Day

Nov. 26: Day after Thanksgiving

Dec. 24, 2010  Christmas Day (observed)

The NFC East Division championship, momentum going into the playoffs — and, for the Philadelphia Eagles, the chance to avenge a loss from earlier in the season — are all factors that will play into the regular-season finale between the Andy Reid-coached Philadelphia Eagles and the host Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.

Reid, a Glendale Community College alumnus, addressed the media on Wednesday on the magnitude of the contest, as well as specific aspects of the matchup.

Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Francis High soccer team, which captured the CIF Southern Section Division II Regional Championship last season, is gearing up for the start of Mission League play.

The Golden Knights, who finished fourth in league last season, will begin league play at 5 pm. Wednesday against Harvard-Westlake at Friedman Field.

St. Francis didn’t see things go particularly well for it in December.

It went 2-6, capped by three losses at the prestigious Nike Southern California Classic near San Diego on Monday and Tuesday.

St. Francis scored one total goal in losses against Brophy Prep, San Jose Bellarmine Prep and Rancho Santa Margarita.

With a new calendar year just around the corner, St. Francis Coach Glen Appels said the Golden Knights are looking to turn things around in league.

“We are pretty close to getting better, and the competition from this tournament really helped us,” Appels said. “We need to be better offensively.

“We created some better chances in our game with Santa Margarita. We did do some things better overall. We know that Harvard-Westlake will be a tough one for us.”

As the first decade of the 21st century comes to a close, we ask our In Theory writers this week: For you, what has been the most memorable experience of these first 10 years of the 2000s? What advice can you share with our readers to make this new year and decade a prosperous one?

Here is a sample of what they had to say. Catch their complete responses in this week’s editions of the La Canada Valley Sun, Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader.

Rev. Kimberlie Zakarian: “I cannot believe the first decade of the 21st century is coming to a close. My belief is to live our lives, not perfectly, but to contemplate what we can do to be history makers. What legacy can we leave behind?”

Rev. Amy Pringle: “Remember the old ‘Star Trek’ series, and how it always seemed to end with some cheesy Capt. Kirk speech about how the human spirit can’t be defeated, no matter how overwhelming the odds? I thought it was as silly as the idea that you could flip open a little box and talk to someone through it. This decade has proven me wrong, on both points.”

Rev. Skip Lindeman: “For me, the most significant thing that happened was the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. We are still feeling the effects of that attack, whether we’re flying on an airplane or staying at home.”

Rev. Jon Barta: “My most memorable experience in terms of “shock value” was the terror attack of Sept. 11, 2001. But there are many more quiet, personal experiences that affected my life in a more dramatic way.”

Graham Bothwell: “We should not underestimate the role of prayerful spiritual thinking in ensuring a progressive and balanced future for humanity, where social, political, economic, and environmental conditions are peaceful, satisfying, and sound.”

Rabbi Simcha Backman: “Once the final decade of the 20th century had come to a close, we had seen many extraordinary events that provided cause for great optimism … I hate to sound negative, but now that we have lived through this first decade of the 21st century, I must admit the sad truth that I was wrong.”

Rev. Bryan Griem: “… Where darkness lurks and evil plots, flowers continue to bloom and love still makes its sporadic appearance.”

According to boxrec.com, Vanes “The Nightmare” Martirosyan’s Jan. 16 bout against Kassim Ouma will be the first defense of Martirosyan’s North American Boxing Federation light middleweight title.

The Glendale-based fighter won the NABF belt, the first title of his professional career, on Dec. 19 in a third-round technical knockout of Willie Lee in Youngstown, Ohio.

Martirosyan (26-0, 17 knockouts) will face Ouma (26-6, 16 KOs), a former world title holder, in Las Vegas.

A volunteer works on the La Canada Flintridge Tournament of Roses Association float on Tuesday. The float, titled "Scizzored Wizard," is the city's 32nd entry in the Rose Parade. (photo/Megan O'Neil)

While young volunteers applied the finishing touches to the La Cañada Flintridge Tournament of Roses Assn. Float, more than 100 people gathered Tuesday for the Under the Bridge Major Donor Party.

The event honors donors who contributed $125 or more to the association, and serves as an annual reunion for all La Cañada float participants.

Don Ziehl, the first association president and a former La Cañada Unified School District superintendent, said assembling the inaugural float in 1978 was a whirlwind. 

“It was a real scramble to get that float down the parade route that first year,” he said. “It turns out it is a bit of a scramble every year.”

The best part about being involved with the association is the joy of seeing people work together on a project that at some points seems impossible, he added.

“I don’t know anything else that was going on during the 25 years I was here that brought three generations together like building this float does,” Ziehl said. “That alone [makes] it very worthwhile.”

With the San Francisco Giants dipping into the free-agent pool to pick up utility player Mark DeRosa on Tuesday (he signed a two-year contract), it will be interesting to see how that might affect former Glendale Community College standout Freddy Sanchez.

San Francisco acquired Sanchez, a three-time all-star, in a trade in July from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Sanchez missed the last week of the season with a knee injury, but reportedly will be ready to go for spring training in February in Arizona.

DeRosa, who played last season with the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Cardinals, can play most infield positions.

[UPDATE] Authorities have determined that the package was not a bomb. It was, in fact, a gift from overseas, officials said.

The battered cardboard box with a near-illegible return address caused a bomb scare that prompted the evacuation of dozens of Dreamworks employees at about 12:05 p.m.

[UPDATE] Glendale Police said they were called in at 12:05 p.m. after an unscheduled cardboard package was delivered to the campus.

During a security check, Dreamworks personnel noticed something suspicious and called police, prompting an evacuation of the building, Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

Hazmat teams were called in as an extra precaution, not because there was an immediate threat, police said.

Authorities are continuing to investigate the package as they decide whether to move it to a more secure location.

[UPDATE] A Glendale News-Press reporter at the scene said two hazmat teams from Glendale and Burbank are on the scene.

About 60 employees have also been evacuated to the intersection of Flower Street and Grandview Avenue.

Witnesses said the package was discovered between two buildings, one of which is under construction, and that they were told to evacuate immediately.

[UPDATE] An employee at Dreamworks said police were called in about one hour ago to investigate the package. Employees at the campus, located on the 1000 block of Flower Street, have been told to stay put, he said.

Authorities have closed the street to traffic.

[DEVELOPING] Authorities are investigating what they said was a “suspicious package” at the Dreamworks Animation campus.

Glendale firefighters who responded the scene were recently called back as bomb the squad prepared to move in.

Passengers board a southbound Metrolink train on Monday, December 14, 2009. (Roger Wilson/Leader)

GLENDALE — Metrolink has agreed to pay roughly $39 million to settle all but one of the lawsuits filed against the agency in the aftermath of a January 2005 derailment that killed 11 passengers on the Glendale border, an attorney for the plaintiffs said Wednesday.

Of the 186 complaints filed against the agency in the wake of the accident, all but one of the suits have been resolved, said Jerome Ringler, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. All 11 wrongful death lawsuits have been settled and 15 of the 16 serious injury lawsuits have been resolved.

The remaining cases involved non-critical injuries.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge handling the cases vacated a Jan. 4 trial date and urged both parties to “work diligently” to resolve the remaining case, a six-figure serious injury lawsuit, Ringler said.

“We fully expect that last one to resolve in the next three to four months, but there is no guarantee,” he said.

In October, Ringler said 90% of the cases had been settled for about $30 million with six cases remaining.

The recent settlements, which await approval from the Metrolink board of directors, bring years of litigation to near finish, even as the rail agency grapples with lawsuits stemming from the deadly Chatsworth crash last year that killed 25 people.

Prior to that crash, the 2005 Glendale derailment — which occurred when a Metrolink train hit a parked Jeep Cherokee left behind by Juan Manuel Alvarez on the tracks near Chevy Chase Drive, killing 11 and injuring nearly 200 others — had been the deadliest incident in the rail agency’s history.

Alvarez was sentenced last year to serve 11 consecutive life sentences in prison for causing the derailment.

“All of those involved that were injured or who lost loved ones are very pleased to have this resolution behind them to move forward with their lives,” Ringler said.

Angela Starr, a Metrolink spokeswoman, declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.