Bold move, CV Weekly
In a day and age where newspapers are closing or consolidating every day, you made the bold move to publish and deliver a free weekly paper! My day still consists of the morning read, along with the morning cup of coffee. Your market study was correct: This area wants, needs, and deserves our own weekly paper! In fact, if you charge subscription fees, go ahead and send me a bill.
Recently my wife and I had dinner in Montrose, then we walked into the Once Upon a Time bookstore.  The biggest reason we did is because I saw their huge ad in your paper and I want to patronize them because of it. I’ll be the first to confess that I’m not a big reader, but we found THREE books which will make nice additions to our existing library. My goal is to pick one of your advertisers each week and give them my business.  I challenge all your readers to do the same! The reality is that without advertisers there is no paper.
Keep up the outstanding work, I look forward to seeing the next issue on my driveway!
Finally I want to add this: On the Montrose Search and Rescue Team we always have multiple safety factors built-in. You opened up a newspaper with zero safety factor! In my book it takes more guts to do what you’re doing than it does to rappel down a cliff or out of a helicopter!

Mike Leum
La Crescenta

Great idea, Robbyn
I want to give credit to Robbyn Battles for having thought of another close by drop off area for Monte Vista’s students. Living one house away from the school, thus being very aware of the heavy a.m. and p.m. school traffic, I noted that last week’s Tuesday through Friday mornings have been such a wonderful drastic change from the accumulation of backed-up cars with harried drivers waiting to drop off/pick up their children.

Pat McLeod
La Crescenta

Allied Waste needs to 
be honor green efforts
Three points. First, my wife and I are really happy to have back our community paper and I see many of my neighbors feel the same.  Thank you Robin & Mary and the staff at CVW for your entrepreneurial vision.
Second, it must be known that you cannot say conservative without uttering the word conserve. Which leads me to my third and final point: being green for profit vs. being green for its tenets.
Background: My wife and I have recently xeriscaped our home. We have reduced our water bill by nearly $40 a month and reduced our usage by thousands of gallons. Plus, no more mowing (less gas/electricity depending on your lawnmower), and our waste to the trash company by more the 50%, among other benefits to our home and community too numerous to mention here.
While kudos needs to go to CVWD for our $800 rebate for doing our conservation project, we emphatically say, “Shame on you, Allied Waste.” While reducing our yard waste to nearly zero, and having focused on looking at our garbage practices, reducing them as well, we realized that the preponderance of our home products we dispose of is recyclable i.e. packaging. Yet, we cannot get a reduction in our Allied Waste bill. Why not?
One would question the policies of Allied Waste, its contract with any municipality that does not reward “green” (ahem) fiscally conservative efforts. If we really do reduce, reuse and recycle in order to save the planet, reduce our carbon footprint and have a healthy conscience, then where is the fiscal conservatism in our efforts? I guess Allied Waste is like the government: it takes our money (whether we like it or not), and needs to perform little function for it. The inconvenient truth is…reducing your waste is not profitable, except for Allied Waste.

Scott R. Bassin
La Crescenta

TYING TOGETHER 
THE COMMUNITY
A quick note to tell you how much I enjoyed your new newspaper! Full of great articles that mean so much to a boy who grew up, married his high school sweetheart, bought his first home, started a small business, and raised children here in the Crescenta Valley! I have hiked Deukmejian many times and the MacDonalds’ vineyard is so great and has a tie to the local history of the valley.
I loved reading about the local heroes that volunteer their time with the Sheriff’s Reserve and Montrose Search and Rescue. I personally know many generations of MS&R volunteers and have the utmost respect for them and their tradition. Your newspaper has tied together so many of the things that make living in this hamlet so special. Congratulations!

Todd Thornbury
La Crescenta

A NOTE OF THANKS
Now that cleanup is behind us and we have started to think about what the El Niño rains might bring, the Cañada Crescenta Democratic Club would like to take this opportunity to thank some wonderful people for their actions during the Station fire.
First and foremost, thank you to the brave and skilled firefighters from numerous jurisdictions for their diligence and hard work in protecting our neighborhoods. The incredible effort in and around the La Cañada Country Club area and the controlled burns at the top of Rosemont and Briggs were carried out flawlessly, and were a textbook example of the training and professionalism of these fine men and women. We are all so grateful for everything you accomplished.
In addition to the actual fire fighting, the club wishes to thank the City of La Cañada, which did an outstanding job of keeping us informed and up-to-date with its website. Los Angeles County and City of Glendale law enforcement kept the residents and affected areas safe, in spite of the difficult evacuation process. The La Cañada Unified School District and the Glendale Unified School District also responded promptly and with great concern for our children. The phone communications were greatly appreciated.
Our neighborhoods came together and supported one another during this disaster, and we are all proud to be residents of our diverse foothill community.

Vickere Murphy, President
Cañada Crescenta Democratic Club

FIRST THE FIRES 
AND NOW THE FLOODS
I want to thank the Crescenta Valley Weekly for its reporting on the potential flooding and mudflows this winter. The potential flooding and associated mudflows is of critical concern to all of us in the Crescenta Valley. I note also it may also affect significantly our local water supplies by reducing the amount of stormwater we can capture and causing significant water pollution from all the debris washing off our mountain slopes.
The Cresecenta Valley Water District in coordination with the other water districts in the area with the Los Angeles County Flood Control District are already having discussions with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to develop a winter contingency plan to reduce the risk of flooding. But equally important is to protect our local water supplies from all the silt and debris that will reduce our ability to capture stormwater to replenish our local wells. We are also concerned the fire debris may cause a serious water quality problem in the Verdugo Basin.

If you would like more information about our efforts to protect our local well water supplies, please do not hesitate to contact me or the staff at the Crescenta Valley Water District.

Richard Atwater, Director
Crescenta Valley Water District

CRITICAL THINKING ABSENT
A letter appearing in the Crescenta Valley Weekly, Sept. 17, “Re-evaluating Conservation Needs” by Charles Beatty, proposes increasing the days for outside watering from two to three. This proposal is an example of the problem with the water district in not having forward-thinking on the board of directors. They operate using a knee-jerk approach showing no critical thinking or analysis in their decisions.
The suggestion to add a watering day is flawed. Adding a day may lead to an increase in water usage by 50%. The community just got into the routine of conserving water.
What message does this send when they are being told it’s alright to now use more. The District’s Water Conservation Program was hastily put in place without fully analyzing the effects or working with residents and neighboring communities. Its prior attempts to adjust the policy were equally disastrous. And once again we will have to readjust our irrigation timers. Perhaps the board would be willing to come out and readjust everyone’s irrigation timers. I would suggest that with the wet season approaching (both a blessing and a dreaded thought due to the fire) the present version of the policy remain in effect. In the meantime the board can properly revisit the policy and prepare well thought out modifications.
Mr. Beatty refers to the ‘Community Relations and Water Conservation Committee’ and the ‘Policy Committee’ meetings as being open to the public. Unfortunately neither of these meetings were announced or posted in the local paper or on the District’s website. A look at the website reveals a barren landscape for committee meeting activities. If the District really wants to have the community involved they need to announce the meetings in a formal manner. In fact since both of these committees directly affect the community I would recommend the board include community residents on these committees.
It is interesting that now, just before the upcoming November election, the board members up for re-election are listening to the residents. Where was that listening last year when these water restriction issues were first raised and in more recent months repeated many times over? If these same board members get re-elected, the day after the election the door to the resident input will again close for another four years.

Kerry Erickson
La Crescenta