Advocating for more senior housing in Pasadena (Photo – Garrett Rowlan).
Monday night’s meeting of the Pasadena City Council featured several enclaves arriving in the chambers like pools of potential jurors, each with its own agenda.
By Garrett Rowlan
First among these were several members of the Golden State Collective, the medical marijuana store on Mentor. Champions of this establishment have gathered in the council hall before, but this time it was to stand in unison to protest a December 12 raid.
The second group occupied the same space vacated by the Collective supporters. This second group stood as one to approve the council’s decision to amend the zoning conditions of the property at 1070 North Lake, a change that would allow a greater percentage of senior residents. The building, which formerly had been largely a senior-citizen complex, found its actuarial numbers trending downward after the property changed hands. Council voted to push the space more toward a senior living facility.
The third group of supporters came to cheer the passage of a resolution to convert Heritage Square North to a mixed-use property with an emphasis on housing the homeless. Though the resolution’s approval was known beforehand, that didn’t stop a seemingly endless stream of advocates from praising the council’s decision and bathing within their reflective glow, a celebration which could have been tempered when considering, according to William Huang, Pasadena Director of Housing, that it would probably be around two years before the first shovel would strike earth.
Pasadena City Council meeting on Monday, Dec 17, 2018(Photo – Garrett Rowlan).
Small-cell wireless sites around the city
The most immediate and perhaps impactful subject on the evening was an FCC mandate to streamline the permit process to allow a dramatic increase in small-cell wireless sites around the city. The top-down ruling, tagged with the anxiety-provoking term “shot clock,” was reminiscent of last week’s imposed changes on street vendor rules, though this time the feds, not the state, were the instigators of the decree. The prospect of dozens of these small centers of signal-chewing devices, shaped apparently like bread loaves and/or enormous toothpicks, around the city of Pasadena was met with disquiet by public speakers and by the council. Both Andy Wilson and John J.Kennedy noted the potential, as-yet-unstudied risks to health by having cells and genes flooded by 4-and 5-G sites. Kennedy bemoaned the potential visual blight of these cells. And how was the city to process the estimated 250 to 300 applications expected over the next half-dozen years? Mayor Terry Tornek bemoaned the fact that, after last week’s imposition, “this is becoming a regular thing.”
Council doesn’t meet again until January 14.
> Watch the full Pasadena City Council meeting on Monday, Dec 17, 2018.
>> Brenda Harvey-Williams, has been appointed the City’s Director of the Department of Human Services and Recreation (DHSR).
>> John Perez is officially appointed the City’s new Chief of Police.
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