The 818 Now

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.

From the La Cañada Valley Sun

With drunk driving incidents up on surface streets in the foothills this year, the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station and California Highway Patrol Altadena office will ramp up their efforts to arrest drivers who are under the influence.

Five men were arrested by sheriff’s deputies in La Cañada Flintridge on DUI with a blood alcohol content of .08% or higher this past week, said Sgt. Mark Slater of the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station.

“Typically you see an increase during this time of year because of the holidays,” Slater said. “I’m not alarmed they’re going up [but] I’m happy we’re catching them. That’s ideal because we’re catching them before any collisions.”

For more of this story, read here.

A last-minute donation push Friday allowed the Crescenta Valley Sheriff Station staff and volunteers to assist more than 160 families in need over the weekend as the station’s annual holiday Toy and Food Drive came to a close.

Dep. Jorge Valdivia said they received 2,000 toys — enough so that every child could be given more than one. Each family was also provided with a $20 gift card plus up to four bags of groceries.

“Friday was a big push, it was a Christmas miracle,” Valdivia said. “We had a great success this year The station volunteers did a lot of work this week.”

From the La Cañada Valley Sun

More than 100 teens and adults made a pledge at La Cañada High to not text messages on their cellphones while driving as the “X the TXT” campaign bus stopped by the high school campus Friday evening.

Allstate Insurance’s “X the TXT” campaign truck, a national campaign designed to make teenagers and their parents pledge they won’t text while driving, has been touring the nation, stopping by at La Cañada High during the La Cañada Classic, a high school boys’ basketball tournament.

“What this is, is a support of teen safety,” said Robert Feldman, an Allstate agent in La Crescenta who was at the site. “A teen is 20 times more likely to be in a serious accident while driving than when not.”

Pledgers were asked to dab their thumbs in blue ink and place a thumbprint on the banner to promote awareness of the dangers of texting while driving on Friday evening. Photos of the participants were posted on facebook.com/thumbsuppledge.

For more of this story read here.

From the La Cañada Valley Sun

Still awaiting the scheduling of the championship game in the Brandt Tournament, La Cañada boys’ soccer made the best of the situation, beating Maranatha 3-0 at home on Thursday.

La Cañada beat Cleveland High, Crescenta Valley and Granada Hills and tied Sylmar to get into the Brandt Tournament’s championship game against Glendale, but rain over the weekend forced delays. The coaches of La Cañada (7-1-1) said they believe the game will be played early next week.

Since then, the boys have been playing their regular schedule, beating Village Christian on Tuesday and Maranatha on Thursday, both of which were 3-0 victories.

Read more here.

From the La Cañada Valley Sun

Angeles Crest Highway above La Cañada Flintridge is scheduled to reopen early next week, barring any delays in clean-up work from mudslides sustained last weekend, a Caltrans representative said Thursday.

The highway has been closed since Saturday, when the second in a series of three rainstorms caused debris and mud flows of land left barren of growth by the Station fire.

“We’re working on cleaning the debris,” said Caltrans spokeswoman Kelly Marcum, “and we should be opening [the highway] up early next week.

“We’ve got crews working around the clock,” she said.

For more of this story read here.

La Cañada High senior Kate Hansen’s bid for a place on the 2010 U.S. Olympic luge team ended early Wednesday when she came in third place in a race-off against Megan and Emily Sweeney for the last available women’s luge spot.

Megan Sweeney, 22, of Suffield, Conn., beat her sister Emily, 16, and Hansen with a combined two-race time of 1 minute, 38.003 seconds at the Olympic course in Lillehammer, Norway. Emily finished second at 1:38.168 and Hansen, 17, was third (1:38.578).

Megan won the spot and will travel to Vancouver this year; Emily will be an alternate in case of injury.

“Kate’s anxious to come home for the holidays,” said Hansen’s mom, Kathie Hansen, adding her daughter comes home Thursday afternoon. “She’ll resume racing and training on Jan. 2 with the Junior team.”

The Junior World Cup will be held at the beginning of January; the Junior World Championships will follow on Jan. 31 in at Igls, Austria.

La Cañada High senior and luger Kate Hansen will be in a race-off this Wednesday against sisters Emily and Megan Sweeney, both of Suffield, Conn., for the final spot on the U.S. Olympic Luge Team, according to U.S.A. Luge officials.

The race will be held at the 1994 Olympic course in Lillehammer and will be early Wednesday morning European time, said U.S.A. Luge spokeswoman Sandy  Caligiore.  “By 7 or 8 a.m. Eastern time, we should know the outcome,” she said.

Hansen won two of the four U.S. World Cup qualifiers against the Sweeney sisters, but had been demoted to the Nations Cup just before the World Cup began after a bad run.

Emily Hamlin, who won a bronze medal at the World Cup this past week, and Julia Clukey, of Augusta, Maine, are likely taking the first two spots with one of the Sweeneys or Hansen taking the third and final.  The official team will be announced on Dec. 18.

Tonight is the first night of the Festival of Lights.

A lot of Jewish holidays are about forgiveness, atonement, new beginnings and remembering how our ancestors suffered. We starve ourselves, we lay off bread, we remind ourselves of the bad things that we’ve done in the last year and we look forward to new years and new opportunities. No matter what the holiday is, you do the same ritual every year.

Hanukkah is the only holiday where we celebrate our families and how they change; we glow in the flickering candle light and share the joy of being around one another. We enjoy it as kids, opening presents and drinking hot cocoa and playing dreidel (some of us did, anyway). We get older and enjoy the company of our siblings, seeing our parents as equals and drinking wine with one another. We get older and enjoy it as parents and seeing our children open their presents. And so on and so forth.

This will be my first year celebrating it without my dad, who passed away in early October.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the La Cañada Valley Sun

Aggravated assaults were up in the foothills during the month of November, with five reported in La Cañada and La Crescenta, more than the total number of victims in all of 2009, according to a Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station crime analyst.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had that many aggravated assaults,” said analyst Barbara Hazard, “but the stats count numbers of victims.”

Hazard said there were three incidents involving five victims in November, the most of any month in 2009. There were single counts of aggravated assault reported in February, March, August and September.

Hazard also noted the aggravated assault charges are, for the most part, not related to domestic abuse.

For more of this story, read here.

La Cañada senior Alex Campbell and sophomore Katy Campbell will be traveling to Columbus, Ohio, this week to swim in the Junior National Championships, Dec. 10-12.

Alex currently swims for Rose Bowl Aquatics.  His sister swims at Swim Pasadena.  Both will be members of the La Cañada High swim team in the spring.

At the annual Holiday Meet at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center, which featured 21 of the best swim teams from around the area, Alex Campbell took first in the 100 yard freestyle and 200 yard backstroke.

Last year, both Campbells played an important part in their team’s success. Alex Campbell was a leg in the boys’ 400 yard freestyle relay that clinched the Spartans fourth consecutive CIF Southern Section Division II championship.

Katy Campbell came up huge for the girls’ team with a first place finish in the girls’ 500 yard freestyle (4 minutes, 53.04 seconds).  Her place helped earn the Spartans second place in the Division II championships.

Swim season for high school will begin in the spring.

La Cañada boys’ basketball started the season on a strong offensive note, dropping 100 points on South El Monte to win 100-57 in the Arroyo Tournament on Monday.

Offensive penetration was key for the Spartans in their victory, but the reason La Cañada was able to score 100 was because of bad defense, according to Spartans Head Coach Tom Hofman. CIF rules state the clock must run out after one team has at least a 40-point lead as a mercy rule.

“We did well offensively,” Hofman said after the win, “but our defense was terrible. They exposed a lack of intensity on our part.”

Aakash Shah, a senior, scored his first two points of the season for the triple digit topper.

“It’s cool,” Shah said of the accomplishment. “It was a good game. We started off a little rough but we got it together.”

That slow start saw the Spartans up 50-33 at the half, a score the team wasn’t particularly proud of.

For more of this story, read here.

Though no evacuations have been ordered yet, Pasadena Human Society and SPCA is prepared for an influx of pet evacuees should the order come, a spokesman for the Pasadena SPCA said early Monday afternoon.

“We’re on alert for evacuations and we’ll be ready to go when we’re given notice by the [Crescenta Valley] Sheriff’s Station or Glendale PD, “said Ricky Whitman, vice president of community resources for the Pasadena SPCA.  “We’ve been waiting since the weekend. We’re hoping this rain passes with no major events, but we’re prepared either way.”

Whitman added that during the Station fire in late August the SPCA was alerted by the Los Angeles County Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station of the evacuations and promptly set up a receiving tent at La Cañada High School.

“We’ll always have room,” Whitman said.  “We’ll work with other centers and rescue agencies to make sure evacuees have room. We’re very flexible.”

During the Station fire, the Pasadena SPCA also worked with animal rescue agencies in Glendale and Burbank.

As rains could bring mudflows to La Cañada and La Crescenta, an evacuation center is in the works if the L.A. Fire Department orders evacuations, said spokesman with the city of La Cañada.

“There is no center open right now,” said Peter Castro, public safety coordinator for the city of La Cañada, “[because] no evacuations have been ordered yet.”

If an evacuation occurs, officials will chose a center based on proximity to affected areas.

“There are a few places an evacuation center could be set up — in the city, out of the city — but that will be established after the evacuation is ordered,” Castro said.

From the La Cañada Valley Sun

Sitting at her new desk working on the newly-installed Wi-Fi, energy drink in hand, Frockx owner Joanna Nelson surveys the landscape of the new Foothill Boulevard home of her women’s clothing store, a few blocks west of its previous location.

“This is going to be a much better location for us, by far,” Nelson said. “I love the patio. I’ll use that for little parties.”

The 900-square-foot store is prominently featured on the corner of Lasheart and Foothill, across the street from La Cañada Flintridge City Hall in the former home of Botanicals.

“As soon as we saw this spot available, we jumped on it,” Nelson said.

For more of this story, read here.

If the AMGEN Tour of California and its cyclists are to return to La Cañada, it won’t be through the same route as last year.

The routes of the tour have changed for the 2010 race and stage 6 will be running from Pasadena to Big Bear Lake.  Last year’s stage 7 route, from Santa Clarita to Pasadena, went through La Cañada on Angeles Crest Highway and Foothill Boulevard on its way to the Rose Bowl.

Stage 7 is listed as “Los Angeles” and the stage could theoretically come through La Cañada again, but the route details have not been released yet.

The race will take place May 16-23, 2010. Stage 6 will be on May 21 and stage 7 on May 22.

Multiple paramedic ambulances and fire trucks parked on the 700 block of Foothill Boulevard Monday were attending to an elderly man who appeared sick while having lunch at Dish, according to authorities.

The man, said Dish owner Kevin Finch, was hunched over his lunch, incapacitated.

“It was just an elderly guy who dozed off,” Finch said.  “We just wanted to make sure he was OK.”

Deputies from the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station, who were having lunch at the restaurant, called in fire personnel from Station 82 and 19 at around 11:45 a.m., Finch said.

La Cañada girls’ volleyball team lost on Saturday in the second round of the CIF State Division II Championships to Redlands East Valley in straight games for the second year in a row, 22-25, 12-25, 12-25.

Last week, the Spartans (26-8) lost a close match to Elsinore in the CIF Southern Section Division II-A finals.

“We started strong, serving well, passing well and siding out,” said La Cañada Head Coach Brock Turner of the loss to Redlands. “Then, in games 2 and 3, the passing and play wasn’t consistent and we stopped siding out, which gave them too many good swings at balls during their transition phase of the game.”

Read the full story here.

The season isn’t over for La Cañada girls’ volleyball just yet.

The Spartans extended their season by at least another game Tuesday, beating Frontier High School in four games, 23-25, 25-17, 25-18, 25-18, in the first round of the CIF State Championships.

As usual, senior Courtney McCutchan led the team with 18 kills, and Tara Rallis had 18 digs. Maryjo Scott (seven kills), Micaela Anderson (12), Katie Pierce (six) and Claire Hilsen (six) contributed kills as well. Hayley Woodford had 44 assists.

La Cañada will travel to Redlands East Valley High School for the second round of the CIF State Championship for the second year in a row on Nov. 28.  Last year, the Wildcats defeated the Spartans in straight games.

A $12,000 bronze statue was stolen from the front yard of a residence in the 4900 block of Oakwood Avenue in La Cañada over the weekend, authorities said.

The statue is 4 feet tall and depicts a child kicking a soccer ball, authorities said.

“Someone may have wanted it bad, for themselves or for the metal,” Sgt. Ray Harley with the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station.

The statue was stolen Nov. 20-22, and no witnesses to the crime have come forward. If you have any information reguarding the theft, call the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station at (818) 248-3464.