Friends of Rockhaven is asking those who would like to support their effort in saving the Rockhaven Sanitarium to turn back time and write a letter – not an email but a handwritten letter – and mail it to the Glendale City Council asking them to support this historical woman-owned-and-operated mental health facility. The letters can be mailed to: City of Glendale, Attn: Glendale City Council, 613 E. Broadway, Glendale, CA 91206,
An example of a letter can be found below:
Dear Mayor Asatryan and Councilmen Brotman, Kassakhian, Gharpetian and Najarian,
We were so excited to see staff working on ways to save the bathrooms and the closet wall in the Pines at Rockhaven Historic District! How amazing it will be to one day see the floor tiles that Agnes Richards chose in 1931 that her granddaughter later covered in linoleum!
But we were told by the lovely Mr. Berry in our meeting with Director Calvert that plans are still to make two bathrooms usable, add an accessible bathroom and put in a warming kitchen. It seems staff is considering this an all-inclusive building because it is the only space considered “public” at this point. Staff members said they have not gotten direction from Council to consider any other alternatives.
Besides the fact that the $8 million grant is supposed to be used to create a park and museum, accessible walkways are being built across the campus and landscaping has been planned; staff is not making any plans to make this property a “park” unless directed by Council to do so. Plans right now are to shoehorn a bathroom into a bedroom that has a unique architectural detail and is, to us, display space for artifacts we have in storage.
So we are asking you to, right now while plans are still being finalized, direct staff to put in an outdoor accessible bathroom and to leave the Pines as original as possible.
What we have at this moment is the only chance to be able to preserve all the original elements in this building! If it is decided later to make Rockhaven Historic District a park and then put in outdoor bathrooms we have irreversibly lost details and space we cannot get back!
And even if Rockhaven is never declared a park, if all the rest of it becomes businesses, it can only benefit from exterior public restrooms. There are 3.5 acres that will be used in one way or another and an outdoor bathroom just makes sense!
But staff members are under the gun to make sure they get everything done in time to claim the grant. If direction is to be given it cannot wait until they present it to Council at the last minute in February. Please! RIGHT NOW direct staff to put the bathrooms outside The Pines and leave the 1931 building as original as possible!
We thank you for your attention and action,
(Insert your signature here)
Letter Writing Campaign in Support of Rockhaven added by CV Weekly on
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