Smoke Causes Evacuation of Mt. Sierra

Smoke causes evacuation of Monrovia's Mt. Sierra College. http://goo.gl/mM8eO

- Brad Haugaard

Monrovia Flags at Half-Staff for 9-11

Flags in Monrovia will be flown at half-staff Tuesday, September 11, in recognition of Patriot Day and the National Day of Service and Remembrance. http://goo.gl/O6BHB

- Brad Haugaard

Monrovia Police: Black Tape Over Licence Plates is Suspicious, Vehicle Burglaries

[Monrovia Police activities from the Police Department's Neighborhood Watch Report for September 6-9. - Brad Haugaard]

 

Following are the weekend's highlighted issues and events.

  

Gang Injunction - Suspects Arrested

On September 7 at 8:56 p.m., an officer conducted a traffic stop in the 400 block of East Duarte for a littering violation.  Upon contacting the occupants, the officer found the three occupants to be in violation of Monrovia's gang injunction.  The occupants were arrested for the violation and later released on a citation.

 

Burglary

On September 7 at 10:44 p.m., police responded to a business in the 100 block of West Foothill regarding a burglary.  A security guard in the parking lot observed two females exit a vehicle and place black tape across the rear license plate to obstruct it.  The two females entered the business and the guard remained in the parking lot to monitor the vehicle.

  

Several minutes later, the two females exited the market with a shopping cart full of store merchandise.  As the females approached their vehicle, they saw the security guard and fled on foot, leaving the merchandise and their vehicle behind.  The officer who responded recovered enough evidence to establish a burglary and to possibly identify one of the suspects.  The vehicle was stored and the investigation is continuing.

 

Vehicle Burglaries

On September 8, four vehicle burglaries were reported throughout the day.  The burglaries occurred in the 400 block of East Cypress, the 800 block of West Hillcrest and in the 600 and 700 blocks of West Foothill.  The entry into the vehicles appears similar and was possibly made by the same suspect(s).  The door locks on all four vehicles were broken to gain entry.  The investigation is continuing.

GoDaddy Takes Down MonroviaNow.com

A hacker group called "Anonymous" crashed the GoDaddy.com hosting service ( http://goo.gl/RDmHx ), which in turn took down websites around the world, including MonroviaNow.com. MonroviaNow is not hosted at GoDaddy, but it uses a redirect service provided by GoDaddy, and without that MonroviaNow was effectively taken off line, Sorry for the inconvenience.

Update: GoDaddy.com is now saying it was fully responsible for the outage that took down websites around the world, so apparently not hackers. In an apology letter to customers the company said, "The service outage was due to a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables." It said no customer information was released and it is giving to each customer a credit "for the value of 1-month of service for each of your active/published sites."

- Brad Haugaard

Health Screening | New Thrift Store Opening | Toastmaster Club

~ Fifty-plus health screening sponsored by Set for Life on Saturday, Oct. 13, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Fannie M. Goodwin Education Building, 925 S. Shamrock, in Monrovia. For details, email info@setforlifenews.org or call (626) 386-8701.  http://setforlifenews.org

~ United Thrift, a new thrift store, is opening in Monrovia to benefit the Foothills Pregnancy Resource Center and First United Methodist Church of Monrovia. The store will be at the church (140 E. Palm) and will hold an open house October 17 from 6-9 p.m.

~ A new Toastmasters Club is opening at the Monrovia Y. Toastmasters teaches public speaking.

- Brad Haugaard

City Manager: Monrovia Bond Rating Should Go Up When Lawsuit Resolved

Monrovia City Manager Laurie Lile told the Monrovia Coordinating Council she is "confident" the city's bond rating will go back up when the "scary" developer lawsuit for an "amazingly large amount" ($106 million) is resolved. She said she believes the developer is open to settling, but that negotiations with the Gold Line will affect those talks. Even best case, she said, the lawsuit is not going to be resolved in a couple of months.

- Brad Haugaard

New Monrovia Food-Truck Regulations Coming

City Manager Laurie Lile told the Coordinating Council that the city settled it's food-truck lawsuit because it had become clear it would lose and would have to pay the food-truck folks' attorney fees. She said the city will redraft it's rules and try to control the trucks using parking regulations.

- Brad Haugaard

Read Across Monrovia

Read Across Monrovia is looking for adults who would like to read to
young students in town on Oct. 11 from 8 to about 9 a.m. Contact
Joanne Spring if interested: jspring@altrionet.com.

- Brad Haugaard

Batchelder Tile Designs in New Monrovia Train Station

Historic Batchelder tile designs will be incorporated into the new Monrovia Gold Line Station, according to Jim Wigton, writing in the Monrovia Historic Preservation Group's newsletter. He writes that "Cha-Rie Tang, the artist who has designed the Monrovia Gold Line Station," has contacted homeowners who have the tiles and "is making impressions that she plans to incorporate into the Gold Line Station design." Examples of Batchelder tile: http://goo.gl/JxOzJ

- Brad Haugaard

E-Waste Round-Up Sept. 29 at Monrovia's Mt. Sierra College

There will be an e-waste round-up from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 29 at Mt. Sierra College (101 E. Huntington). It accepts electronic devices that plug in or take batteries. Not accepted: batteries, fluorescent lights, wood, glass, tires or large appliances. ACTS Thrift Store will donate to Foothill Unity Center for each pound of electronics donated.

- Brad Haugaard

Donnelly's '10 Worst Bills' | Mei Mei Huff's Radio Program

~ Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, who represents part of Monrovia, has come out with his list of "2012's Top 10 Worst Bills," which he wants Californians to petition Governor Brown not to sign. They range from "prohibiting law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities" to a measure that "increases taxes on lumber products." http://goo.gl/TMMR7

~ Mei Mei Huff, the wife of State Senator Bob Huff, who represents Monrovia, has a new Mandarin-language radio program in the LA area on KAZN AM1600 at 7 p.m. Saturdays. Huff said on Facebook that she will discuss politics "from a pro-jobs, limited government viewpoint, but what did you expect?"

- Brad Haugaard

Monrovia 52, Arcadia 17 :-)

Monrovia over Arcadia in football. http://goo.gl/9loQR . Details: http://goo.gl/b67b0

- Brad Haugaard

Monrovia Schools: Finances, Purchase of iPads, School Facilities Use

At its Sept. 12, 7 p.m. meeting (agenda: http://goo.gl/IxUPZ ), the Monrovia Board of Education will ...

~ Review its "Unaudited Actuals - Annual Statements of the revenue, expenditures and the ending fund balances for all district funds for the 2011-12 fiscal year." http://goo.gl/5et0X

~ Consider buying Apple iPads for classroom use, for $238,509.38. http://goo.gl/uLw2g

~ Consider policies on the use of school facilities.

- Brad Haugaard

Detail Being Revealed on 210 Bridge | Blood Drive

 

~ Architectural elements of the 210 Gold Line bridge, designed by artist Andrew Leicester, are being revealed as the "falsework" (scaffolding) is being removed. Spokesman Habib Balian says it will take several more weeks of consecutive night closures to complete the removal process. He adds that off-site work continues on fabrication of the baskets that will soon sit atop the bridge's main columns.

Also, he reports that eastbound closures of the 210 "will start again late Sunday night, and continue through next Friday morning. Closures start around 9 p.m. each night with nearby on-ramp closing first, then individual lanes begin to close around 10 p.m. Full closure of the eastbound freeway starts at Midnight, and all lanes reopen by 5:00 a.m. the following morning."

 

~ Community blood drive, Tuesday, Sept. 11 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 800 Royal Oaks Drive in Monrovia. http://goo.gl/DPaMb

 

- Brad Haugaard

Lunch at Tastee Express

Lunch the other day at Tastee Express. That's the little hot dog stand out front of Home Depot. There are some tables with umbrellas so don't worry, you won't have to sit on the curb. Got the Polish dog combo for $6.95. Hey! That was really a great dog! This is across town for me but if I'm in the mood for a Polish dog I think I'll be back.

- Brad Haugaard

Monrovia Albertson's Appears to Survive

Albertson's is closing stores in Southern California, but apparently the Monrovia store is a survivor. At least I don't see it mentioned as closing. http://goo.gl/C54nE

- Brad Haugaard

White in Two | Electronics Recycling

White in Two

~ This new artwork is on the garage at the house on the corner of Magnolia and Hillcrest. It is called "White in Two" and owes its inspiration to Paul Morphy. I know because I painted it.
  

~ Electronics recycling at Bradoaks Elementary School at 930 E. Lemon Ave. (cross street is Mountain Ave.) on September 29, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will be recycled and Bradoaks PTA will earn money.
   

- Brad Haugaard

AeroVironment Stock Drops | Monrovia FD to Remember 9-11

~ The market was apparently not impressed with the performance of Monrovia's AeroVironment - which had a first quarter net loss - as its stock fell 6.36 percent today. http://goo.gl/IaYUl

~ At 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11, the Monrovia Fire Department will join 43 other area fire departments to raise and lower the flag to half-staff in honor of the 343 firefighters and 72 police officers died in the 9-11 terrorist attack. http://goo.gl/RXt3K

- Brad Haugaard

Candidate Judy Chu Speaks at Democratic Convention | City to Repeal Food Truck Ban

~ Video: Congresswoman Judy Chu, who is running for Congress in a district that includes Monrovia, speaks at the Democratic National Convention, endorsing President Barack Obama and criticizing Mitt Romney. http://goo.gl/Vzudk

~ City to repeal ban on food trucks. http://goo.gl/X7GA1 . Suit costs city more than $200,000. http://goo.gl/jFMd2

- Brad Haugaard

Monrovia Police: Unlocked Car Leads to Missing Purse, Mountain Lion Tips

[Monrovia Police activities from the Police Department's Neighborhood Watch Report for September 3-5. - Brad Haugaard]

 

During the last seven-day period, the Police Department handled 422 service events, resulting in 64 investigations.

 

Theft From a Vehicle

September 6 at 1:41 a.m., a theft from an unlocked vehicle was reported in the 300 block of East Hillcrest.  The vehicle was parked in the victim's driveway.  The victim heard noises, looked out his window and saw an unknown suspect exit his vehicle and run eastbound.  A purse was stolen from the vehicle.  The suspect is described as a male Hispanic, 25-30 years old, medium build, wearing a white shirt, white shorts and white shoes.  The investigation is continuing.

 

 

Tip of the Week: Living With Mountain Lions

There has been very little research on how to avoid mountain lion attacks.  But mountain lion attacks that have occurred are being analyzed in the hope that some crucial questions can be answered.  Following are safety tips and information provided by the California Department of Fish and Game.  For further, more detailed, information click on Living With California Mountain Lions.   

 

Do Not Hike Alone:  Go in groups, with adults supervising children.

 

Keep Children Close To You:  Observations of captured wild mountain lions reveal that the animals seem especially drawn to children.  Keep children within your sight at all times.

 

Do Not Approach a Lion:  Most mountain lions will try to avoid a confrontation.  Give them a way to escape.

 

Do Not Run From a Lion:  Running may stimulate a mountain lion's instinct to chase. Instead, stand and face the animal.  Make eye contact.  If you have small children with you, pick them up, if possible, so they don't panic and run.  Although it may be awkward, pick them up without bending over or turning away from the mountain lion.

 

Do Not Crouch Down or Bend Over:   A person squatting or bending over looks a lot like a four-legged prey animal.

 

Do All You Can To Appear Larger:  Raise your arms.  Open your jacket if you are wearing one.

 

Fight Back If Attacked:  Throw stones, branches, or whatever you can reach without crouching or turning your back.  Wave your arms slowly and speak firmly in a loud voice.  The idea is to convince the mountain lion that you are not prey and that you may be a danger to it.

 

Immediately Report All Encounters or Sightings.