Sitting in on board meetings of various organizations around town sure reinforces what great things are going on around town and what great people we have doing them. Here are some odds and end news nuggets I’ve picked up in the past few days, weeks, and months at Chamber of Commerce and Library board meetings:
by Scott Hettrick
U.S. funds Arcadia street upgrades: City staff took advantage of federal transportation funding to cover 80% of the $1.7 million it cost to widen and add turn lanes at three major intersections on Santa Anita Avenue — Duarte Road, then Foothill Boulevard, and now Live Oak Avenue.
Mall biz growing; mall expanding?: Westfield Santa Anita business was up 6% in October, with traffic up 8%. The mall recently filed a non-specific application with the city to convert the former and vacant Robinsons-May building to be used for a large-scale retail store and several small retailers that would flow out into the food court area.
No housing slump here: While new home construction has stalled in many cities, in one recent month Arcadia had 61 new homes being built, including 52 tear-downs/rebuilds and 9 brand new homes.
Rusnak talking again: With the city in escrow on key properties on Morlan Avenue near the Rusnak Mercedes car lot on Huntington Drive west of Santa Anita, talks have resumed with Rusnak about buying those properties from the City to expand his dealership.
Caruso/Stronach talking again — smaller Shops at Santa Anita?: Officials report a new deal may be finalized by December between Rick Caruso and Santa Anita Park owner Frank Stronach about a new partnership between the two titans on a slightly scaled-down Shops at Santa Anita project.
Joint-Use Gym: The new joint-use (City/School District) gymnasium being built at Dana Middle School will be opened in January with a City staff person assigned to manage it. The City will have use of it evenings and weekends, with the school accessing it weekdays.
Synthetic soccer field: The soccer field at City Hall will soon have the field replaced with a synthetic turf.
All bets off for Red Cross Monte Carlo night: With the Red Cross undergoing staffing and management changes, the annual Monte Carlo night fund-raiser usually held in November has been canceled.
Bridge, anyone?: In addition to the $14 million bridge to be built over Santa Anita Avenue and the Iconic Freeway Structure (bridge) to be built over the 210 freeway for the Gold Line Foothill Extension, starting in January 14-weeks of work will begin to retrofit and add a second set of tracks for the bridge running diagonally over Huntington Drive at Second Avenue. And the bridge over Colorado Avenue west of Santa Anita Avenue near Newcastle Park will need to be torn down completely in late 2011 and replaced with a wider bridge.
School budgets down 22%: Arcadia School District budgets have been slashed a whopping 22% in the past two years, which means the school board and administrators deserve praise for ensuring the quality of education amidst such dramatic spending cuts.
School buildings get their own showcase between holidays Before construction begins on the high-profile performing arts center, the public is invited to a preview tour of the completed Student Services Building on Campus Drive, 45,000 square-foot Science Center and adjacent 134-seat Lecture Hall on Duarte Road from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11. Exhibits and demonstrations will be available. The Student Services Building on Campus Drive, which will serve as the school’s “front door” is a 50,000+ square-foot, two-story structure with 18 new classrooms that are each about 2,600 square feet. The entry lobby and waiting area is about half that size at 1,250 square-feet. In addition to AHS admin offices, conference rooms, labs, and others, the building also includes a new TV classroom studio with modern control and editing rooms, according to School District Superintendent Dr. Joel Shawn.
Library traffic/use in the fast lane Did you know that the Arcadia Public Library had nearly 600,000 visitors in the past year and loaned out the collection of nearly 200,000 books and other items such as DVDs and audio books more than 725,000 times? That’s way more than ten times the number of residents in Arcadia. About 168,000 visited the ever-expanding web site. Also exceeding the population was the number of questions asked of librarians: nearly 64,000. Maybe that’s because there are nearly as many current library cards for the Arcadia library the number of people living in town: more than 53,000. That’s a much higher percentage than the 62% nationally, which is also impressive. That means the library staff can always use help, which they got last year from 238 volunteers who put in more than 15,700 hours, 32 of those volunteers tutoring residents how to use one of the library’s 60 computers — 802 questions and 7,435 computer sessions in October alone! Proving that public libraries remain a vital part of American life, there are 16,604 of them in the U.S., more than the number of McDonald’s restaurants.
— By Scott Hettrick