710 Freeway Vote Fails at Neighborhood Council

The voted unanimously Tuesday night at its monthly board meeting for a plan to blanket a hill in with a 1-megawatt solar array project that will generate about 11 percent of the power that Oxy uses annually.

But in a somewhat surprising development, the council’s board--which met at the --failed to muster a vote in support of a campaign by South Pasadena Mayor Mike Ten to oppose the expansion of the widely loathed 710 freeway.

Ten, who made an eloquent and impassioned presentation at the board meeting, asked the ERNC to lobby the state legislature in support of state Assembly Bill 353, which was introduced by Assemblymember Gil Cedillo in April and which would allow cities in L.A. more control over the expansion of the 710, a long-stalled project that the ERNC staunchly opposes. More specifically, if the bill becomes law, the city of South Pasadena would regain the right to veto any freeway construction project within its jurisdiction.

In December, the voted unanimously against a CALTRANS plan to expand the 710 freeway through a toll tunnel. Stretching some four miles from Mount Washington to Glassell Park, as the ERNC described it in its resolution, the tunnel would "decimate neighborhoods beyond recognition, dislocate many of our citizenry and disrupt life for those remaining for more than a decade."

While as many as four ERNC members abstained from voting in support of the bill, five voted in favor of it—one vote short of the simple majority needed to win. The abstaining members said they needed more information and time to decide on Ten’s plea, even though the mayor cautioned the board that time may be running out to save the bill, given that it must be voted on in the state assembly by July.

In contrast, the ERNC wasted little time in voting for the solar array at Oxy, which would substantially reduce the college’s annual cost of running—electricity accounts for more than two-third of Oxy’s annual utility bill.

Jim Tranquada, Oxy’s director of communications, gave the ERNC a detailed presentation of just where on campus the two-acre solar array project would be spread out and how its hillside footprint and design would be radically different from the controversial Broadview array in Montecito Heights. The sun’s glare reflected from the proposed Oxy solar panels would affect little more than a tiny minority of residents in Eagle Rock for a short period of time during the morning, Tranquada said.

Tranquada informed the council’s board that to help make solar power more affordable to community members, Occidental College has arranged for the manufacturer of the solar panels, SunPower, to offer a rebate on rooftop solar installations to homeowners and owners of small businesses in the 90041 (Eagle Rock), 90042 (largely Highland Park) and 90065 (mostly Mt. Washington) zip codes.

In another significant decision, the ERNC board unanimously voted to seek a revision to the Los Angeles City Council’s so-called Colorado Specific Plan, which, among other things, requires restaurants in Eagle Rock to close by 9 p.m.

The vote was in response to a request by the owners of restaurant on Colorado Boulevard to extend their hours of operation until 11 p.m.—and to waive a hefty fee that the City Council evidently requires for all such applications. (Kim Dingle, co-owner of Fatty’s, told the ERNC board that the City charges as much as $31,500 for an application to amend the Colorado Specific Plan.)

The council board authorized its land use committee to write a letter to , urging him to extend Fatty’s operating hours and to waive the fee for its application to do so. (Fatty’s has been closed since it held its “last supper” on Dec. 31, 2010 to allow its co-owners to embark on what they say is a creative hiatus.)