Hot Days | Monrovia Book Sale | Staar Board Member | Damage at Mt. Sierra

~ Temperatures are supposed to be in the high 90s today and perhaps as high as 102 Friday. http://goo.gl/MsJ9C

~ The Friends of the Monrovia Public Library Fall Sale, with more than 5,000 books, will be held on October 13 & 14 in both Library Park and the Library Community Room from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The famous $2 a Bag Sale is on Sunday from 3-5 p.m. All proceeds benefit the Monrovia Public Library. Prices for regular books and media range from 25¢ to $2. Collectables are individually priced from $5 to $40. Book sellers are welcome, scanners are not permitted.

~ Charles Slacik, CPA, 58, has joined the board of Monrovia's Staar Surgical. Mr. Slacik has over 30 years of executive level experience in the health care industry. http://goo.gl/suuw2

~ A fire at Mt. Sierra College caused $15,000 damage. http://goo.gl/D4ZMc

- Brad Haugaard

Look-Ahead Football Video: Monrovia vs. San Dimas

Video: Sports writers look ahead at Monrovia-San Dimas football game. http://goo.gl/XBFv0

- Brad Haugaard

Monrovia Comedy Night | Donnelly Objects

~ The Volunteer Center of the San Gabriel Valley is sponsoring a comedy night with raffle prizes September 27 at 7 p.m. at the Monrovian Family Restaurant. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Two drink minimum.

~ Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, who represents part of Monrovia, writes "An Open Letter to Governor Brown" asking him to veto AB 1081, which in an earlier message, he said would turn California into "a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants" ( http://goo.gl/s1Qbj ). Also, he criticizes Brown for raising taxes on lumber: http://goo.gl/fLHX1

- Brad Haugaard

Old Track Removed at Monrovia Station

The old train tracks have been removed at the old Monrovia train station in preparation for the Gold Line. http://goo.gl/OVBVg

- Brad Haugaard

Meeting about Wildfires on the Edge of Town

If you are interested in "best management practices of mitigation, prevention and response to urban-interface brush fires," the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) Fire Chief Advisory Group will be held on Wednesday, September 12, 2012, at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Room of the Monrovia Public Library. You can't speak at the meetings, just watch. However, the "Fire Department will be holding a series of public forums and scoping meetings in the near future to allow for participation from all members of the community and those stakeholders that would be impacted by a brush fire." http://goo.gl/KuX9a

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