By Robin GOLDSWORTHY and Mary O’KEEFE

Lisa Woung from the Programs Development Division of the County of Los Angeles Dept. of Public Works gave an update on the progress of medians along Foothill Boulevard at the monthly meeting of the Crescenta Valley Town Council. A traffic study concluded in July and, based on the results of that study, the number of medians to be installed was reduced. The reduction in the number of medians impacted the budget and planning phases. Instead of a cost of $2.5 million and an installation process encompassing two phases, the budget was reduced to $1.5 million and will be completed in a single phase. The budget includes the installation of two monument signs at the east and west ends of the unincorporated portions of Foothill Boulevard at Pennsylvania and Briggs avenues. The monument signs, which are estimated at a cost of $50,000 each, will be reflective of the design style used in the creation of the La Crescenta Library. Local resident David Gallagher will do landscaping of the medians and the design of the monument signs.

“Our architect is fantastic,” Woung assured the crowd. “He’s been very in tune with this project.”

Gallagher has also been commissioned to design the monument sign welcoming drivers to Glendale on the west side of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Agreeing to a request by the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce, work on the project won’t begin until early 2018, after the holiday season. It is estimated to take up to 20 weeks to complete.

Two political candidates had an opportunity to address those at the town council meeting. Fifth District Supervisor candidate Darrell Park outlined some of the key areas he would focus on should he win the supervisor’s race. Specifically, he commented on how the town council lacks budget or power and how town councils could be more helpful if they had a budget with which to work and with those funds would have more power to decide their specific needs, especially in an unincorporated area that suffered a natural disaster.

Park also skewered the current system on the county level.

“We have a bureaucratic system that isn’t working,” he said adding that it is important to tap into resources that are available but underutilized, like town councils, though he was not specific in describing what authority he would grant.

Other areas he touched on were law enforcement and the jail system as among the programs “needing the most attention” and his opposition to the 710 Freeway extension.

“It doesn’t make sense money-wise and [the tunnel system] would be a death trap,” he said.

Laura Friedman is presently serving on the Glendale City Council and is running for Assembly seat 43rd District.

Friedman briefly introduced herself to the audience and highlighted the fact that she was very familiar with the Crescenta Valley area. She too is against the 710 Freeway extension but the question that posed the most interest came from an audience member who asked Friedman why she was in support of Prop. 64 – marijuana legalization.

Friedman said that she had gone back and forth with this proposition from being in favor and then against it and then for it. She said she now is in favor of the proposition because of the reduction to the state’s prison population, which is implied by fewer arrests. She, like many others in support of Prop 64, felt that its passing was inevitable. She did admit she still struggled with legalizing marijuana though she had voted for legalizing medical marijuana. However, like many voters, she thought a person in medical need would go to his or her doctor, get a prescription and then go to a pharmacy for the prescription to be filled. That may have been how Prop 215, which passed in 1996, was viewed in theory prior to the vote but that was not how it panned out. Medical marijuana is purchased at dispensaries, and the medical reason for the issuance of a medical marijuana card to some patients has on occasion come into question.

Friedman felt the regulations that have been placed in Prop 64 would make this a different scenario from the medical marijuana proposition. When asked about the provision in Prop 64 that “authorizes resentencing and destruction of records for prior marijuana convictions” she said she was not certain of that aspect of the proposal.

Again she sympathized with the woman in the audience and with many Californians who struggle with this measure and said she will continue to analyze the proposition.

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  Mary Okeefe, robin goldsworthy