This driver exiting alley at right will no longer be able to cross Santa Anita and make a left turn.

The work is part of a plan to revise three intersections along Huntington Drive between San Rafael and Santa Anita in hopes of improving traffic flow on Huntington. The projects include (see photos):

• Creating additional left turn lanes on southbound and northbound Santa Anita at Huntington. This will include closing off the cut-through from the alley south of Huntington on the east side of Santa Anita (photo at right and bottom right).
  
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• * Adding another northbound right turn lane where Huntington makes a sharp turn to the east at the intersection with Santa Clara by shaving off a piece of the County’s Arcadia Park property  (photo at left).
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• Closing off another median cut-through for left turns at San Rafael near Citizens Bank and to the 100-to-1 bar. The City announced at the Council meeting Tuesday that this work will now be delayed since the Gold Line’s impending closure of Colorado Boulevard over the next month to take down the train bridge would severely limit access to the residential area north of Huntington Drive and south of Colorado. (Photos at right)

The Arcadia Police Department was notified by staff at a local hospital that they were treating a victim Thursday evening (May 17) of a stabbing that he said in Arcadia six days earlier.
Officers met with the victim, a 20-year-old, male Asian from Hacienda Heights, at the hospital, where he was being treated for a single stab wound to his chest. The victim said he had walked out of the beverage shop when he was approached in the parking lot by two males, asking the victim where he was from. Words were exchanged, and the suspects punched the victim. One suspect stepped back, pulled out a folding knife, and stabbed the victim in the chest. The suspects then ran off. The victim said the incident took place between 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. The victim provided a vague description of the suspects as being Hispanic males, 18-21 years old, one wearing a blue “LA” hat, blue shirt, black/gray plaid shorts, and white knee high socks.

The victim does have admitted gang affiliation and based on the victim’s account, the incident may be gang related. Due to a lack of witnesses and delayed reporting of the incident, police are asking the public’s help in providing additional information on the crime. Anyone with information related to this case is asked to call the Arcadia Police Department at (626)574-5156. You can also submit crime tips and information via text, phone, or web to LA Regional Crime Stoppers, 800-222-TIPS (8477).

But the picture may not be that bleak. First of all, the City expects to make more than $600,000 from the one-time sale of former water well property and another $700,000 – $1.2 mil. from a joint IRS Task Force program involving the recovery of money through audits, according to Police Chief Robert Guthrie. Lazzaretto, who had only a few weeks to prepare the budget since taking over in late March, said during a study session Tuesday that those two projected windfalls cannot be budgeted since they are uncertain income.

In addition, the City typically proposes very conservative budgets and usually winds up with a hefty surplus, such as the current 2011-12 fiscal year ending June 30 which is projected to end up with a nearly $900,000 net gain versus the initial budget last year that forecast a deficit of about $850,000.

And finally, significant additional sales tax and business license tax revenue is anticipated from new shops scheduled to open at Westfield Santa Anita, starting this fall — probably September — with a new two-level Forever 21, and followed by a Gold’s Gym next February on the third level of the same building, the former Robinsons-May store.
In fact, two of the brightest spots in the City of Arcadia’s income for fiscal year 2011-12 and projections for 2012-13 come from Arcadia businesses. Sales tax revenues and business license taxes are projected to climb another 6.3% and 9.1%, respectively, to a combined $10.8 million in 2012-13.
The City’s annual sales tax from businesses has increased $2.3 mil. (34%) each year, climbing back this year to more than $9 mil. for the first time since the recession. Sales taxes are projected to climb to $9.6 mil. next year. And the Business License Tax, which has steadily increased each year, is budgeted to reach $1.2 mil. in 2012-13.
(Despite the success of businesses, the City may consider cutting the fee it pays the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce by 50% as the Chamber is asking for only the second fee increase since the 1990s.)

Although Redevelopment funds from the state, which were eliminated earlier this year by Governor Brown, do not technically show up in the City’s General Fund, those state funds were used to pay nearly $1 million in staff salaries and other City expenses that must all now be covered by the General Fund.

Councilman Segal expressed concern that while the City may find temporary ways to cover projected deficits, those deficits are only going to get bigger each year until the City either finds significant new revenue streams or makes significant cuts in City services, such as cutting back the number of days the Library is open, cutting back tree trimming and street services, or even closing a fire station. He was not suggesting any of those things, but noting that it would take something on that scale to close the projected budget deficits over the next several years.

After a three-hour presentation by City department heads Tuesday, City officials decided to reconvene at 5:30 p.m., May 29, to decide how to approach the 2012-13 budget that starts July 1 — whether to make potentially major cuts to offset the $1.5 mil. projected loss on paper to come up with a balanced budget, or to leave expenses as budgeted by City staff and take a calculated gamble that the expected additional income will come through and more than cover what currently looks like a deficit. Or a combination of both.

Councilman Amundson expressed a desire to balance the budget. Mayor Harbicht later said that he is confident that City revenue will rebound when the economy recovers.

– By Scott Hettrick

In recent months it has become apparent that those plans have quietly changed, which could lead to limited parking until an entirely new, expensive, and lengthy Environmental Impact Report and design change were to be completed and approved. Gold Line officials are now suggesting that train riders will simply and happily begin carpooling and riding bikes to the station, thereby reducing parking demand.

Work is underway on an 11.5-mile extension of the Gold Line from its current terminus at the Madre Villa station in Pasadena to Azusa. The new $18.5 mil. “iconic” bridge over the eastbound lanes of the 210 freeway into Arcadia is expected to be completed by September (the public is invited to meet the artist of the bridge design at the Arcadia Public Library on June 26). Meanwhile, work is beginning this month to demolish the train bridge over Colorado Blvd. to make room for a new, bigger bridge there. A bridge will then be built over Santa Anita Avenue — major construction begins this September with completion scheduled for mid-2013. Those tracks will lead to the station and adjacent parking garage on the northwest corner of First Avenue at Santa Clara. Additional construction will be needed to expand the bridge over Huntington Drive at Second Avenue. The next leg after Azusa would be to Claremont and Montclair, and eventually to the Ontario Airport around 2025, though approvals and funding are still needed for the latter stages.

Station platforms (in yellow) have since been revised to be west of First Avenue adjacent to the parking garage.

When Metro was gathering support for the project, they promised that the Arcadia parking garage would initially be built with only two levels, but designed from the beginning to be constructed in such a way as to be easily expanded by as many as three additional levels of parking to handle up to 800 cars.

But during presentations at Arcadia City Council meetings and during questioning at Arcadia Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Forums, it has been revealed that the current plans do not include the design of an expandable parking garage, and that the current EIR does not account for anything more than two levels of parking.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a resolution “requesting” the Metro Gold Line Foothill Construction Authority to design and construct the Gold Line Arcadia station parking structure to allow for future expansion of up to 800 spaces as required by the full build alternative as documented in the 2007 Final Environmental Impact Report and subsequent supplemental EIR.

That was just a few minutes after Construction Authority CEO Habib Balian, during a regular update of Gold Line progress to the Council, confirmed that the current plans for the parking structure call for a two-level garage with a capacity for 300 spaces (50 fewer than the planned station at Monrovia). He also confirmed that although the pillars of the garage are being built big enough to eventually handle three additional levels of parking, a new design and EIR would be required if and when demand increased for parking. But he said that based on current usage patterns, when parking garages reach capacity, train riders are finding more environmentally friendly ways to get to and from stations, such as bicycling and carpooling.

Later in the meeting, the Council approved $70,000 for a consultant to help the fledgling Arcadia Downtown Business Association establish a Business Improvement District to tax property owners in the area just south of the Gold Line station to create shops and entertainment in the area that will not only create a more enticing environment for local residents but that will also leverage the potential customers arriving and leaving the parking lot at the station.

– By Scott Hettrick

May 11 photo from Gold Line Facebook page: The I-210 Bridge form work is almost ready for concrete. The architectural form-liners are nearly all in place and reinforcing steel is being installed.

Meanwhile, eastbound lanes of the I-210 Foothill Freeway will be impacted on June 11 as concrete is poured for 18-hours at the new “iconic” bridge. Pre-construction activities, such as gathering soil samples, locating and surveying underground utilities, and will be ongoing throughout the summer.

(Click here for an index of recent stories and updates on various Gold Line projects and news.)

During the Colorado Blvd work, local access to residences and businesses will be maintained by use of access streets along the detour route on Colorado Place and Santa Clara Street; a portion of the eastern edge of the Newcastle Park will be fenced off but access to the majority of the park will be maintained.

At a future date to be announced, Colorado Blvd will need to be closed again when work begins on the construction of a new bigger bridge to carry two sets of side-by-side tracks for the Gold Line.
Separately, work that the City of Arcadia recently announced to close off left turn access in and out of San Rafael on Huntington Drive has been indefinitely delayed until after all bridge work is done on Colorado Blvd. The two projects being conducted simultaneously would have effectively locked local residents in or out of the area by restricting the only access roads to the north and south of the area.

A construction notice that went out to local residents and property owners in the area is included below. For questions about construction activities:

Visit www.foothillextension.org and sign up to receive important progress updates and construction alerts to your email.

Community Hotline: (626) 324-7098

Dan Kulka, Community Relations Manager
Kiewit Parsons Joint Venture
(626) 610-0300 / dan.kulka@kiewit.com
For project information:
Sylvia Beltran, Community Outreach Coordinator
Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority
(626) 305-7012 / sbeltran@foothillextension.org