Alice Sarkisian Wessen

Feedback on Cell Tower

From:

"Alice Sarkisian Wessen"

awessen.com

Cc: "Greg Middleton" <gregmiddleton@earthlink.net>

(name removed for privacy):

Thank you for your email

The Town Council has no legal, financial or legislative authority. ATC does act to send out info and provide a venue for Altadena to speak its mind but LEGAL NOTIFICATION comes from the legal entity ie the county, and from your email is sounds like that happened:
"....prior to the County bulletin being posted on the Debris Basin fence and/or the postcard sent out by the County about the Dec 7th hearing, and that's why it only came up AT the hearing."

The Regional Planning Meeting IS the legal meeting to ensure folks had an opportunity to be heard, and given that there were stated objections on Dec 7th, the county gave more time for input. 

The vote by town council is NOT legally binding, but it is a strong signal by this community to the county. 

However, when the postcards were sent and notice put out by the county, even those who had not yet heard via the multiple postings on the Town Council website, and Altadena Blog and the multiple listserves did hear about it from county notices and came to regional planning on Dec 7th.

So the process worked and is working by your own email.

And that is a good thing!

Community response has been requested by the County by Jan 15 and the Regional Planning Commission meeting will be on February 9th, 2010.

Alice Wessen

--- On Thu, 12/30/10, (nameremoved) wrote:

From:
Subject: Re: [chaneytrail] Proposed Cell Tower, Loma Alta/Fair Oaks Debris Basin
To: chaneytrail@yahoogroups.com
Cc: "Greg Middleton" <gregmiddleton@earthlink.net>
Date: Thursday, December 30, 2010, 11:36 AM

  FWIW, please know that many of us who live nearest the new proposed cell location were not adequately notified/involved prior to the County bulletin being posted on the Debris Basin fence and/or the postcard sent out by the County about the Dec 7th hearing, and that's why it only came up AT the hearing.  (ie we were not asked by our tract rep Mr Middleton or anyone else involved with the council what we thought and not everyone affected is on a listserve and/or reads altadenablog etc).  This includes at least three families who are VERY close to the proposed tower who had only recently moved to the area (and would never have purchased their houses if the cell tower was already there and/or had known that one was imminent).  The four that showed up to protest are just the tip of the iceberg (eg it wasn't just four *people*, it was four people with families/other people in their household and/or who were speaking on behalf of others who were unable to attend.  Also, several others who could not attend the hearing sent letters/emails of protest once we knew about the hearing.)

With apologies to everyone who thought this was a done deal, please know that these objections would definitely have arisen earlier in the game had there been more extensive/adequate notification  (postcards???  flyers??? door-to-door contact???).  Anyway, now that we *do* know about it, we just want the opportunity for our opinions to be taken into consideration with as much thoughtfulness as everyone who has already voiced theirs. 

Respectfully,

(Name Removed)

Proposed Cell Tower, Loma Alta/Fair Oaks Debris Basin

Neighbors,

Community input by January 15th, 2011

At the Dec 7^th regional planning meeting four folks showed up to protest the proposed cell tower for the debris basin on Loma Alta. No one showed up to support the measure, despite much work that had been done by many homeowners who live near the cell tower and who had worked together with Town Council to move the cell tower from the Lincoln Water Park area to the debris basin.

Given that 4 people showed up in opposition to the cell, Regional Planning has stopped the approval process pending further hearings.

Town Council reps in the census tract where the cell tower is proposed have gotten strong support for the cell tower and the community agrees that the new site would be an asset for us who can't get cell signals.

It is important for those who would like to have a cell tower up here to make your voices heard. Here is the information where you can do that.

See the information below.
Courtesy Greg Middleton, Town Council Rep
The ATT cell tower project on Loma Alta Drive is scheduled to be heard by the Regional Planning Commission on February 9th.  At this point the only correspondence that they have received is the letter from Altadena Town Council supporting the project and opposition by four nearby residents. I think that most of the supporters of the project just assumed once the site was moved to the drainage wash, the project would go forward, and did not attend Town Council meetings or write letters in support.

It is important that we get as much input to the Commission as possible to ensure that the will of the residents prevails.  Dean Edwards is the planner on the project and he needs community input by January 15th, in order to include it in his report to the Commission.  Please encourage interested residents to express themselves to Mr. Edwards by letter or email at the following address.

Mr. Dean Edwards

Department of Regional Planning

320 West Temple Street, 13th Floor

Los Angeles, CA  90012  

dedwards@planning.lacounty.gov

 -------

Previous discussion and web links to the cell tower:

http://www.alicewessen.com/alice_sarkisian_wessen/2010/11/cell-tower-update-on-loma-altafair-oaks-debris-basin.html
http://www.altadenablog.com/2010/03/land-use-committee-to-look-at-new-cell-tower-location.html

http://www.altadenablog.com/2009/07/land-use-committee-looks-at-cell-tower.html#comments

 

Storm Alerts, Road Closures: Chaney Trail is closed due to storms and mud

A free e-mail based service of messages sent by the LADPW from the Coordinated Agency Recovery Effort (CARE). It is available to notify interested parties in a timely manner of news and events of specific interest. Register at http://dpwCARE.org

You can also link to CARE via the official website of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department at www.lasd.org

Current road closure info may be found here:

http://gis.dpw.lacounty.gov/roadclosures/main.cfm

Note in Altadena, Chaney Trail north of Loma Alta is closed.
For further info on that road, contact the USFS at 626 821-6700

About the Proposed Farmers Market

About the Proposed Farmers Market

The issue of a Farmer's market came to Town Council a couple of months ago when someone posted a notice near Farnsworth park indicating that a Farmer's market would be coming to that location.  Based on that posting and the resulting communications to the Council by residents, we decided to look into the issue.

From what we have heard, there seems to be a conceptual interest by the community to have a Farmer's market in Altadena.  But in all things conceptual, the devil is always in the details.  There are the issues of venue, parking, traffic, the day and hours of operation, the type of the vendors at the market, along with a few other issues.

We have begun the process of addressing those issues.  At this point in time, the only issue that seems to be definitely fixed is the location for a potential market.  Since this program is designed for markets on County Parks property, there is a limited choice of venue.  Loma Alta park is the "only feasible" location in Altadena.  All other County park locations have parking, traffic, and existing program limitations that preclude them from consideration.

Therefore, we will need to focus on Loma Alta as a site for a possible market since it is the only park to have enough parking and a traffic circulation pattern that might work.

The next step will be to engage the residents of the neighborhood and of Altadena, to determine the wishes of our community, including the following:

The desire and consumer demand to have a Farmer's market in Altadena.
The acceptability of using part of Loma Alta park for the venue.
The day and hours of operation.
The type of vendors for the market.

The County is now canvassing potential vendors to determine what products and services might be available for an Altadena market.  Once we have something concrete to present to the community, we will begin the process of gathering public input.  Hopefully, we will be able to start that process in the first quarter of next year.

As always, we will notice the community of all public meetings, and of course, encourage attendance at those meeting as well as direct communication via email, snail mail and phone.


Gino Sund
Altadena Town Council

Farmers Market at Loma Alta Park??

Farmers Market at Loma Alta Park??

Heads Up! There is a possibility of hosting a weekly farmers market at Loma Alta Park, on the grassy area, south of the equestrian arena, north of the parking lot located off Palm. http://parks.lacounty.gov/Parkinfo.asp?URL=cms1_033263.asp&Title=Loma%20Alta In order to gather community input, the January Land Use and January Town Council will be hosting members from the county to discuss specific ideas.