New Year’s is a time of resolutions. There has been a lot of talk on social media about what we can do to make our community a better place. Many suggestions were made, from picking up your trash to returning shopping carts and using car turn signals. Other suggestions included getting involved in a non-profit like Trail Safety Patrol, local school PTA or Prom Plus. If you want to be involved, but don’t have a lot of time, then I encourage you to subscribe to your local paper, attend community meetings and write your local politicians in the city and town councils. There are a lot of concerns facing our country, but politics and change is local. It is your local councils that will decide laws on legalized marijuana. Your local councils will decide if street lighting is favorable or a nuisance. The city and town councils need your input so we can best represent you. We hope to see you at our next CV Town Council meeting on Thursday, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. at the La Crescenta Library, 2809 Foothill Blvd. Since it’s the beginning of the year for CV Town Council new officers will be elected and new committees will be formed at this month’s general meeting.

On Thursday, Jan. 5, the CVTC Land Use Committee discussed several important issues. It held a presentation on the topic of streetlights in our community. Bruce Durbin from LA County Dept. of Regional Planning and James Chon, PE from Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Works both spoke about current policies in place in other parts of LA County that allow for minimal lighting while at the same time allow commercial zones and residents to have lighting. The presentations were followed with questions from the audience and discussion about how that could be implemented in La Crescenta. The purpose of this presentation was to inform the public and the Land Use Committee on current practices and possibilities for future decisions. No decisions have been made as of this time. The Land Use Committee will continue to do future outreach to the community and ask the community to give us its opinions. You can find copies of these presentations at the CVTC website www.thecvcouncil.com.

Also at the Land Use Meeting the architect and land owner of the proposed mixed-use condo project 3037-3045 Foothill Boulevard presented their updated changes to the project. The owner has been working with the county since 2014 and with the Land Use Committee since 2016. The proposed project will have 9,500 sq. ft. of commercial space with subterranean parking and a total of 47 condos. Several changes have been made to the original design including the removal of roof decks. The CVTC Land Use Committee voted to recommend that the CVTC approves the project. The issue now goes before the CVTC at the Jan. 19 meeting for the full council to vote on.

Public comments on the topic will be heard at the meeting. The recommendation to approve or disapprove will be sent to LA County Planning. LA County Planning will be holding its own public hearing in the future. No date has been set, but the estimate given was in four to six months.