HANGING BALCONIES PUT TAXPAYERS AT LEGAL RISK!

On July 21, 2015, about a dozen pictures of the Holland Partners mega apartment complexes on Wilson/Brand and Wilson/Orange were shown at [Glendale City] council.

The pictures were of dangerous balconies hanging over the public right-of-way at both buildings. In order for the developer to maximize his profits, the City approved cheap construction material and planned no large green belt. Building set-backs of 0-2 feet force the public to walk under [these] dangerous balconies risking an object from above will fall down causing bodily harm. Unfortunately, sooner or later, if someone gets seriously hurt from these overhanging balconies there will be a lawsuit and a case law named after the City of Glendale and all parties involved.

Mayor Najarian, having firsthand knowledge on both buildings, could have told the public in the past he had voted no on the Wilson/Brand building and voted yes on the Wilson/Orange building. Instead, he chose not to distinguish between the two properties and stated he hated all the pictures shown and had voted no, leaving the impression with the public his message of being against over-development and strongly working to preserve low-density development.

At the next council meeting, minutes of the Oct. 30, 2012 meeting were presented showing where Mayor Najarian and Councilwoman Friedman had both approved the Wilson/Orange building.

To mislead the public Mr. Najarian showed a 2007 picture of two 16-story mega buildings, which he said he could have approved but did not. The two 16-story mega apartment complexes had nothing to do with the current six-story mega complex with the dangerous hanging balconies.

Mike Mohill

Glendale

Responds to McGinnis Rebuttal

In Lynn McGinnis’ comments on my letter of Aug. 27 he says that the undocumented contribute a few percentage points less to California’s economy than their percentage in the immigrant population. That is not surprising – for one thing they probably have less skill and education than legal immigrants – but also not germane to the point of my letter, which is the fact that undocumented contribute many, many times more than they cost us.

Yes, our lack of universal health coverage is a big, expensive problem – there I agree with Mr. McGinnis. The U.S. needs to join the rest of the developed world by correcting this, which we could do with a single-payer system that would eliminate much of the administrative overhead and all of the excessive profits being taken by the private health insurance industry.

What McGinnis doesn’t mention is that Mexico, traditionally the sending country of about half of migrants to the U.S., legal or illegal, is at net zero migration to the U.S. In fact, some data indicates that more people are returning to Mexico than are coming because of poor job prospects here.

It would be entirely possible to curb illegal immigration to the U.S. without a prohibitively expensive and ineffective (most undocumented come here legally and then overstay their visas) border fence. eVerify [http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify] is an online service employers are supposed to check to confirm legal status to work here before hiring.

But undocumented workers are easy to exploit with low pay, wage theft and other unlawful treatment, so many employers (some of whom are hypocrites simultaneously complaining about illegal immigration) don’t use it. The whole area of employers’ role in encouraging undocumented immigration he also fails to cover.

Roberta Medford

Montrose

We Will Never Forget

On Sept. 11, a very special event occurred in our community – the 9/11 Remembrance Parade. Three very special people, CV Chamber members Steve Pierce, Jean Maluccio and Dwight Sityar, arranged for a motorcade to travel through our community with the help of the [California] Highway Patrol and L.A. Sheriff’s Dept. Their idea to route this motorcade to purposely pass by each of our local schools will help our children to remember 9/11.

There is nothing more emotional than driving up Rosemont and seeing over 1,200 kids line the streets cheering and waving the American flag. This same scene happened again and again as we passed by the different schools from La Crescenta to La Cañada.

Thank you for working so hard to coordinate with each of our schools to get their participation. Thank you for reaching out to our residents who also lined the streets holding American flags as the motorcade passed by. This was an amazing event that truly brought tears to our eyes.

It’s so important for us all to remember 9/11 and to never forget. If I have not said it enough, “thank you” to CV Chamber, Highway Patrol and CV Sheriff for helping our community (and especially our kids) honor, respect and remember 9/11. The 9/11 Remembrance Parade is a significant tradition for our entire community.

See you again next year.

Robbyn Battles, President

CV Town Council

Today is Constitution Day

Today is the 228th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution and it’s the foundation of the longest running government in the world today. We have the only government in the history of the world based on both Judeo and Christian principles and because of our Constitution we enjoy the privileges of living in an exceptional nation. Our Founding Fathers were guided by the following principles when they created the Constitution: Limited Government, Federalism, Popular Sovereignty, Checks and Balances and the Separation of Powers.

Our Constitution has been cuffed around lately. It was stretched when the President entered into to a nuclear weapons agreement with Iran without the consent of the people. The President, Senate and House of Representatives mutually agreed to circumvent the Constitution and allow the President to enter into a nuclear weapons agreement with five major nations and Iran without calling it a treaty. It was a slap in the face to “We the People.”

The Constitutional principle of Popular Sovereignty, the people rule, is a reminder that We the People need to reassert our role in governing our exceptional nation. We can only do it at the ballot box.

Lynn McGinnis

Glendale