By Julie BUTCHER

“Nice fireworks at [La Crescenta Elementary School] on the Fourth,” said Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian who recognized the volunteers of the Crescenta Valley Fireworks Association at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting of the Glendale City Council. He expressed appreciation to the “school district for working with the association to make it happen.”

Mayor Elen Asatryan reported that she received messages from constituents questioning why the city was not having fireworks downtown or at another location. She said she explained this is “actually a city fireworks show.” She wondered if there are better ways of “coordinating with them [the Crescenta Valley organization] and planning with them for the future to highlight that event more.”

The mayor commended the Hayk for Our Heroes organization that put on the Vardavar Water Festival at Verdugo Park on July 7. [Vardavar (or Vartavar) is a festival in Armenia where people drench each other with water.] Asatryan noted that this is the third year the event took place and thousands showed up at the celebration organized by “three or four volunteers.” The mayor hopes there are ways the city can better support this type of event.

Councilmember Dan Brotman raised concerns about the city’s record of pedestrian safety.

“Glendale’s pedestrian injury and death rates are among the worst in the state of California,” he said. “According to the California Office of Traffic Safety, among 60 cities in our size cohort Glendale is fifth from the bottom when it comes to pedestrian injuries and death – and when it comes to pedestrian injury and death rates for seniors, we are absolutely last.”

“I point out this for context to express the sense of urgency I feel about this,” Brotman continued. He noted that of the three measures suggested in the city’s pedestrian safety plan, two have already been implemented. Pedestrians get a head start in intersections where the walk light turns green five seconds before the light turns green for cars. This effort has been shown to reduce pedestrian involved collisions by as much as 60%, Brotman said. The second measure that has been implemented in select areas (downtown, near hospitals and schools) calculates walking speed at 2.8 to 3 feet per second rather than the traditional 3.5 feet per second. This change in walk phase timing has been shown to improve pedestrian safety.

Brotman hopes the third measure can be adopted: the default walk phase at signalized intersections to ensure that a walk signal occurs every cycle without requiring a person to push the button. Studies show that the longer someone is required to wait for the right-of-way, the more likely they are to cross illegally. The installation of exclusive pedestrian signal phases has been shown to reduce pedestrian collisions by 63%.

“I brought this item up four years ago after I was first elected to the council – the idea of getting rid of these ‘beg buttons’ – but I didn’t get anywhere. So I’m bringing it back and asking for my colleagues to look at the cost and implications,” Brotman concluded.

Mayor Asatryan asked if it is possible to do something creative to hide the trash one sees along “the 134, coming into Glendale from the 5 – it’s not a pleasant look and not very descriptive of the rest of our city.”

Kassakhian reiterated his previous concerns about ensuring all of Glendale’s bus stops have adequate protection from sun and rain. City manager Roubik Golanian replied that a report on this issue would be coming to council in August.

In response to public criticism, Mayor Asatryan urged immediate changes to the pilot program operating on North Brand Boulevard, at least “for things that are for sure not working.” Interim Public Works Director Daniel Hernandez responded that changes were being considered and need to be negotiated with the contractor to implement the corrections.

“What’s the earliest we can vote to eliminate the demonstration project?” Councilmember Ara Najarian asked, summing up considerable public outrage over the implementation of this project.

In relatively routine fashion, the Council approved a three-year contract for $228,000 annually for citywide weed control; plans for design-build fire system improvements at various city facilities; $539,000 to expand the city’s human resources enterprise software system; and a contract to build a unified data platform for the police department’s Real Time Intelligence Center (RTIC), which is expected to be up and running in the next few months.

The RTIC will be a center for data collection “to provide real time information to officers responding to incidents in the field, as a location for detectives to access historical data to solve crimes and as an incident command hub for planned and unplanned events,” police department representatives detailed. The $590,000 agreement with Peregrine Technologies, Inc. covers integration, training, maintenance and support; $100,000 of the amount will be funded from asset forfeitures.

Finally, the Council debated future consideration of Mayor Asatryan’s proposal that the city contribute $5,000 toward Black in Glendale’s scholarship program.

The next meeting of the Glendale City Council is scheduled for Tuesday, July 16 at 6 p.m.