Kevin Gilbert addressing the council (Photo – Garrett Rowlan).
“I just want the press to know,” Mayor Terry Tornek said, glancing anxiously at a couple of seated figures, hunkered in the back of the otherwise sparsely-attended chambers of the Pasadena City Council, “that we are not against the Fourth of July.” He was referring, instead, to the main issue on the council’s docket Monday night, a possible ordinance modifying and widening possible punishment for illegal fireworks.
By Garrett Rowlan
The proposed ordinance allows landlords who knowingly allow fireworks to be used on their property to be cited for infractions and/or misdemeanors, thus amending the current situation where officers must observe the lighting of fireworks in order to cite.
Holding the property owner accountable is a way to reduce the problem of illegal fireworks on the Fourth. The numbers speak for themselves. Around seventy-five pounds of fireworks are confiscated each year from well over a hundred calls to the fire department.
The issue has its issues, particularly the use of the word ‘knowingly’, which Councilmember Victor Gordo questioned, though Michael Dowd, Chief Assistant Prosecutor for the city, assured him was in Section 7.5 of the Penal Code, which he summarized as, “If you see it and don’t stop it, that would be knowingly.”
This bit of legalese didn’t dismiss lingering questions. What if the owner isn’t on site? What if the property isn’t managed? What if some kids are waving sparklers and are cited by police, what consequences might come from someone accumulating a “record” at an early age?
Council member John J. Kennedy verbally spanked Chief Bertral Washington and Battalion Chief Wendell Eaton for bringing this issue to the council so late in the game, the Fourth being just a couple of months away.
The first reading of the ordinance was passed, and should be ratified in the near future.
Pasadena City Council meeting on Monday, May 14, 2018 (Photo – Garrett Rowlan).
Misplaced concern and ahead of schedule
Earlier, at six-fifteen, the chambers of the Pasadena City Council consisted of nine supplicants huddled strategically together in the front of the room, benched together like a baseball team, waiting to take the field.
As it turned out, their concern was with a more individual sport—golf, and the potential changing of the Eaton Canyon Golf Course to a public park. In open session, the group batted nine people speaking in favor of retaining a “little jewel of Pasadena,” as one speaker phrased it. Another speaker warned that if the golf course were abandoned the area would become a homeless encampment, or possibly a development. Another slyly told the Council that the voters of that area would remember, at election time, if the golf course, which has seen an upsurge in popularity, were allowed to become something else, something—in their minds–less.
Terry Tornek told the members that their concern is misplaced and ahead of schedule. “The current state of affairs is that County is deciding what to do with the course,” he said.
Earlier, Pasadena poet Gerta Govine read a poem about water, which doses fires and turns golf courses green.
The council dismissed early. Outside, the light in the sky equaled that rising from the sidewalk.
Ο
Previously unpublished poems read at Pasadena City Council meeting on 5/14/2018 by Gerda Govine Ituarte.
Body of Water
Flows
back and forth
Body of Water
drinks me in
Body of Water
thirsty no more
Body of Water
this holy body Mine
Ο
Eagle
Eagle eyes
wings stretched
earth
oceans trees
free to be
to see be me
> Watch the entire Pasadena City Council meeting for Monday, May 14, 2018.
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