Thanks Vets, Community
[On Sept. 29] we were invited by Mike Baldwin to attend the rededication of the Two Strike War Memorial at Two Strike Park. Mike has been keeping us up to date on how things were going with the fundraising and the progress that they were making.
It was our pleasure to attend such a wonderful event honoring not only our son Nicholas but all those before him who have been killed in action defending our country. I have to say that I expected a good turn out but did not think it would be as awesome a turn out as it was. Patriotism in our hometown is alive and well…

We want to say thank you to all the veterans who dedicated the last six years to make their vision of this new memorial a reality; they have truly honored all those who have been lost in this wonderful community.

We also want to thank the entire community that has taken the time to support all of the fundraising held in order to meet the financial needs of this project. I can tell you personally it means more than we can say.

Although we no longer reside in La Crescenta, it will always be our hometown and I’m happy to see what a wonderful community it is.
The Steinbacher Family
Minden, Nev.

Urges Rethinking Townhome Construction
Health risks to those living next to freeways are well documented; yet 30 townhomes are planned for 4201 Pennsylvania Ave. in North Glendale – a location within 300 feet of the 210 Freeway. This is well within the buffer zone which environmental and health agencies recommend that residential not be built.

This location will expose 30 families – men, women, and especially children – to harmful levels of air pollution and noise, and there has been little evidence to date that those concerns have been adequately addressed. It further runs contrary to Glendale’s commitment to cleaner air as evidenced by its recently adopted “Fresh Air Ordinance.”

From the EPA to the CDC, at federal, state, and local levels, momentum is building to hasten laws and guidelines to regulate land use next to freeways to minimize human exposure to air and noise pollution.

We have filed an appeal of the decision to approve this project, and the hearing was postponed until Tuesday, Oct. 22. Our concerns also include but are not limited to the
density and massing, the lack of adequate transition to the single family homes, the ingress and egress of traffic from the development, and the boxlike, monolithic and unattractive “contemporary” design.

Those who support the appeal are encouraged to write letters or email [Glendale] City Council members.
Nancy Comeau and Sherry Stubbs
La Crescenta

Shame on Washington
The lack of leadership in Washington, DC has reached its lowest level in history.
The decision by the Secretary of Defense to stop death benefit payments to families of soldiers killed in action is a cruel insult to every American.

Payments had been stopped to 26 families, including the initial payments to the families of six soldiers who had been killed in action since the “so called” government shut down began. While this decision was made by the Secretary of Defense, the Commander-in-Chief is silently supporting it. (FYI: nothing remotely like this ever happened during the Vietnam Conflict, our most divisive war since the Civil War.)
You can put the leaders of both parties in the House and the Senate in the same room as the President and Secretary of Defense and you will not find any leadership. Instead you will find partisan politicians playing political games with the lives of these families at their most vulnerable time.

I hope by the time this letter runs, the President will have listened to the millions of Americans who are as outraged as am I and restore these payments. He has the constitutional power to do it.

If you want to help, send a donation to the Fisher House, a non-profit organization that supports the families of all our men and women in uniform. They have stepped up to pay these families the benefits they are owed by the U.S. government. If you want to protest, call your Congressman’s office and tell him where you stand.
Lynn McGinnis, Commander
American Legion Post 288
La Crescenta
Editor’s note: Payments were restored based on a bill passed specifically for that purpose last week. All death benefits should be paid out now. A variety of other veterans’ benefits have been interrupted by the shutdown, though many have continued.