WEEKLY
“Getting better all the time.”
THURSDAY, JULY 16 - JULY 22, 2009 VOLUME 14, NO. 57
monroviaweekly.com
In April of this year, the Monrovia Unified School District Board of Education hired a new superintendent of schools, Dr. Linda Wagner. She took over her new position on July 1. After only three days on the job, she met with members of the Weekly’s staff BY KYLE KHANDIKIAN The City of Pasadena Department of Transportation has convened this year to begin revisiting its existing Bicycle Master Plan, which describes Pasadena’s longrange planning for developing bicycle infrastructure. A new plan will look at the full range of actions Pasadena could take to improve biking conditions, and is expected to require more innovation as the city considers new bicycling treatments, amenities, and services. But the City also looks at being able to qualify for state and federal funds, particularly from Caltrans. This time around, however, organizers have announced that the City is looking to rewrite the plan altogether, and funding may be an issue. The current BMP, labeled “Century of Bikes,” which was adopted by City Council in November of 2000, aimed to provide a “safe and attractive environment” needed to promote bicycling as a means of transportation in Pasadena. Although 60lane miles were identified
and answered a wide range of questions about herself and her new job. Wagner came to Monrovia from the Keppel Union School District centered in Pearblossum in the high desert. She was superintendent there for almost 4 years after a brief two year tenure as superintendent in the ActonAgua Dulce Unified School
Dr. Linda Wagner started her new position as head of the MUSD July 1. -Photo by Terry Miller
Eastward Connections Still Absent from New Pasadena Bicycle Plan
-Photo By Terry Miller
with signage and stripes under the 2000 plan, residents, bicyclist and non-bicyclist, have complained that desig-
nated bike routes are located on busy, high-speed roads, are poorly maintained, not properly cleaned, and overall
Music Returns to Local Guitarist Thanks to the Kindness of Strangers and the Power of the Printed Word BY SUSAN MOTANDER &TERRY MILLER Last week Beacon Media News printed the story of musician and single dad Jake Lenaburg who was mugged on his way to an ATM to make a deposit. Not only was his money stolen, but the muggers also destroyed his guitar, an action that was particularly hurtful as he was supporting himself and his 5 year old daughter as a street musician while he worked his way through nursing school. Shortly after the story appeared, one of our readers
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District. In coming to Monrovia, Wagner is returning in some ways to her roots. She was raised and educated in nearby Glendale, graduating from Hoover High School there before attending college at the University of La Verne. She received her BA from La Verne with a dual major in Music and Spanish. She also
dangerous to bikes. Concerns have also been raised over the safety and security of Metro stations and the lack of ameni-
Living Spaces to Open in Monrovia
A delighted Jake Lenaburg plays a guitar that was donated to him after a story about him being mugged outside his ATM in Pasadena appeared in these newspapers last week. -Photo by Terry Miller
received her doctorate from La Verne in 1999 writing her dissertation on “Instructional Leadership in High Poverty Schools. She also holds a bilingual cross cultural language and academic development certificate in Spanish. Her teaching career began in the Los Angeles Unified School District teaching
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ties at those facilities, as well as the lack of accessibility to surrounding neighborhoods. Two community meetings have already been held (one in February and another in May) by the Department of Transportation, along side the newly formed Bicycle Master Plan Advisory Committee, which is comprised of local cyclists, bicycle advocacy groups, bike shops and city staff, and Ryan Snyder Associates LLC (RSA), a new urbanist transportation planning consulting firm specializing in transit and paratransit planning. Open to the public, three more workshopmeetings were supposed to convene by the end of spring 2009, but have not done so. However, a complete draft of the new plan did meet its deadline of June 2009. The newest draft of the BMP seems to acknowledge many concerns regarding bicycling, proposing a network of bikeways so that every neighborhood is within 0.25 miles of an effective bicycling route in the north-south and east-west directions.
Court employees had their first budget driven mandatory furlough day on Wednesday, July 15. Court reporters and clerks as well as the court security officers had an unpaid day off. The deputy sheriffs who act as bailiffs in some courtrooms were not forced to take the day off as they are not employees of the Superior Court. As elected officials, the judges, whose salaries are set by the legislature, were required to be at work. According to Candace
Furniture Retailer to Replace EXPO BY KYLE KHANDIKIAN The Monrovia Home Depot Expo, which closed down earlier this year, is to be replaced by furniture retailer Living Spaces sometime this November. Due to the downturn in the housing market, The Home Depot announced the layoff of some 7,000 employees and the closing of 54 stores nationwide, including the entire EXPO Design Center chain after seventeen years of operating as a higher-end home decorating and appliance store. The Monrovia EXPO closed down with the rest, leaving the 88,000-square-foot building on Huntington Avenue vacant. The City of Monrovia expects about $300,000 in sales-tax revenue from the new store, which will be the fifth Living Spaces for the furniture retailer chain. Living Spaces is expected to spend some $5 million to accommodate the
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Hope lives on for two Mars rovers NASA conducts tests in Pasadena Lab
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Courts Furlough Employees, Continue Serving up Justice BY SUSAN MOTANDER
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Dr. Linda Wagner Now Leads Monrovia Schools BY SUSAN MOTANDER & JOHN STEPHENS
THURSDAY EDITION
BY KYLE KHANDIKIAN
Beason, the Supervising Judge at Pasadena Superior Court said that the court had been planning for the furlough day for weeks and that most cases were not continued to that day. She said, “One courtroom in each courthouse will be fully staffed and prepared to handle all those matters which legally have to be handled.” Beason explained that there will also be clerks available for necessary filings. She said those staff members who worked on Wednesday would have a
NASA officials have announced hope for two Mars rovers stuck on the red planet five years after their expected expiration dates, following tests conducted at NASA’s Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still operational despite having outlived their 90 day lifespan by a staggering five years, and continue to send photographs back to official here on Earth. The two were launched in January 2004 as a part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission and landed suc-
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