Bellflower
HAVE-A-GREATER WEEKEND: BELLFLOWER IS THROWING A YARNIVAL!
YARNIVAL! [SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23] Yes, that’s right—Bellflower is throwing a just-like-the-olden-days Yarnival! If you’ve ever attended one, well, how nice for you, but there’s really no reason for suddenly acting so stuck up. But if you don’t happen to be familiar with the place the Yarnival occupies in American culture, can we just say that holding one [...]
CRAVE LIFE CHURCH USING COLUMBIA SPACE CENTER AS LAUNCHING PAD
Tbe Rev. Moses Barrios says his Crave Life Church in Downey is "not yo mama's church," and the fact that it congregates for Sunday services in the Columbia Memorial Space Center is only the first evidence of that.
DOWNEY, CERRITOS AND SIGNAL HILL DISPUTE WITH WRD HEADS TO TRIAL
DOWNEY – The cities of Downey, Cerritos and Signal Hill are heading to trial in their dispute with the WRD after a judge issued a ruling last week denying the water agency’s argument that the cities do not have a right to a refund for allegedly illegal rate hikes. A trial next year is expected [...]
OBAMA RE-ELECTED, LOWENTHAL AND ROHRABACHER WIN CONGRESS SEATS
President Barack Obama will move forward with a second term in office, defeating Republican opponent Mitt Romney in a close and costly election that saw both parties spend about $6 billion. Locally, the competitive congressional campaigns of Sen. Alan Lowenthal and Long Beach Councilman Gary DeLong concluded with Lowenthal’s victory to represent the 47th District. [...]
ONE QUESTION … FOR CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE ALAN LOWENTHAL
Would your current run for Congress be an easier election---for example, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, a Democrat, has remained neutral---if you had voted differently on Redevelopment Agencies?
SEARCHING FOR THE GREAT PUMPKIN AT LOS CERRITOS YMCA
The annual Pumpkin Patch fundraiser at the Los Cerritos YMCA has been moved behind the building---now it's more of a Pumpkin Porch---but the orange gourds are still selling like ... well ... like pumpkins at Halloween! But only through Tuesday (Oct. 30) at 9 p.m.
COURTHOUSE, NOT DOGHOUSE, FOR 12 LA COUNTY DOG FIGHTING RING SUSPECTS
A Bellflower man and a Compton man, along with 10 others, are in Antelope Valley Court today for arraignment on felony dogfighting and felony aiding and abetting dog fighting charges. A tip led Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies on Saturday to a Littlerock home where a dog fight was believed to take place. Surveillance of [...]
THE LOCAL NORM: REPTILE APPOINTED TO REPLACE BOMGAARS—JUST COINCIDENCE?
Lizard, the stolen iguana returned to its owner at a Bellflower auto repair shop last week, has been appointed to replace Bellflower Councilman Randy Bomgaars, who announced he would sell his good name for a generous annual increase to his pension. The scaly deal has sparked fears of a reptilian invasion.
OLDA WILL PAY $500 FOR A NAME THATS … NEWA
Maybe you’ve heard of OLDA—that’s Orange Line Development Authority—the agency overseeing the proposed light-rail train line that would connect Santa Ana with downtown Los Angeles, passing through towns like Downey, Paramount, Bellflower and Artesia along the Pacific Electric right-of-ways that once carried the Red Car. Or … maybe not. OLDA, the agency, acknowledges that OLDA, [...]
GIVE YOUR 2 CENTS ON $7 BILLION PROPOSAL FOR AN OC-TO-LA TRAIN LINE AT WEDNESDAY MEETING IN BELLFLOWER
The public is invited to an information-and-feedback meeting Wednesday evening in Bellflower regarding the proposed Orange Line, which would connect Los Angeles and Santa Ana—along with in-between towns like Downey, Paramount, Bellflower and Artesia—by running modern trains along the Pacific Electric right-of-ways that once carried the Red Car. The meeting, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 [...]
ST. JOHN BOSCO HIGH’S NEW PRINCIPAL IS NAMED “CASEY YEAZEL” … C’MON, ALTOGETHER NOW: CASEY YEAZEL!
BELLFLOWER (Via The Downey Patriot)—“St. John Bosco Names New Principal,” reads the headline in The Downey Patriot, and something in the blandness of that banner tamps down the chances that John Bosco—the 19th century Italian farmboy / tailor / baker / shoemaker / carpenter / seminarian / priest whose work with misdirected boys made him [...]
BELLFLOWER WILL WAIT FOR ITS MASCOT ‘TIL THE COW COMES HOME
Belle the Cow, the massive bronze mascot of the City of Bellflower, finally has a home—a spot near the trailhead of the city’s bike-and-pedestrian path, where Woodruff Ave., Flora Vista St. and Flower St. intersect—and tentative plans are to move her in within the next six months, according to a story by Arnold Adler in [...]
BELLFLOWER, NORWALK BECOME THEIR CITIES’ RDA SUCCESSOR AGENCIES
The cities of Bellflower and Norwalk have officially become successor agencies to their now-defunct redevelopment programs and are charged, under the law enacted through Assembly Bill X1 26,, with winding down redevelopment activities and paying off contractual and financial debt obligations of those projects. Both cities, as required, set up a payment plan to meet [...]
EDWARD JAMES OLMOS TO SET THE TONE AT BELLFLOWER BRAVO AWARDS
Actor/activist Edward James Olmos will be the main speaker Thursday when common citizens, along with law enforcement officers and firefighters, are honored for uncommon acts of heroism and dedication at the City of Bellflower’s 18th annual BRAVO awards. Admission is free to the event, which begins at 11 a.m. in the William and Jane Bristol [...]
THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN(S)
LAKEWOOD (Via the Herald American)— Capt. Merrill Ladenheim is the new commander of the Lakewood Sheriff’s Station, which patrols 24 square miles filled with 240,000 residents in the cities of Artesia, Bellflower, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood and Paramount. The 26-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will oversee 250 sworn officers and 50 civilian [...]
FIRST LOOK: BELLFLOWER TURNS A PAGE—IS IT ENOUGH TO CHANGE ITS STORY?
Bellflower's first downtown development in decades---the $7 million Belmont Court---will replace a stretch of non-descript midcentury buildings with a collection of residential condos above retail shops that the architect describes as "midcentury with a contemporary feel."
‘O LITTLE TOWN OF BELLFLOWER…’ AND OTHER HOLIDAY FAVORITES
For 10 years, Bellflower's earnest December tradition of lighting the downtown Christmas tree has been the struggling city's holiday card to itself. This year, however, the Tree Lighting Ceremony is nothing less than a classic rescue-of-Christmas television special waiting to happen. Read about it in the GreaterLongBeach.com holiday calendar.
BELLFLOWER COUNCIL WILL RUBBER STAMP ITS CITY MANAGER CHOICE
The Bellflower City Council will meet Monday evening to rubber stamp the unanimous decision it has already made to appoint Jeffrey Stewart as city manager with a three-year contract—and options for two more years—that features an annual salary of $191,000, plus benefits. (For the time being, that salary is reduced to $171,000 by Bellflower’s ongoing [...]
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE … WELL, CERTAINLY NOT THANKSGIVING
The final countdown toward Thanksgiving has begun, and the anticipation is almost palpable. Families across America will soon gather at one of their homes, eat a mid-afternoon dinner---and give thanks that it's almost December, when the really good holidays arrive.
BELLFLOWER’S LATEST STAMPEDE FOR SCHOOL BOARD ENDS TODAY
Eight candidates are seeking three seats on the school board of the Bellflower Unified School District, but incumbents in the Downey and Paramount Unified School Districts are unopposed. The flurry of interest surrounding the available seats on the Bellflower Unified board is rather typical for the district, which has a history of campaign histrionics that [...]
LINGLE IS BELLFLOWER’S INTERIM CITY MANAGER DURING SEARCH FOR REPLACEMENT
BELLFLOWER (via Herald American)—Assistant City Manager Lee Mingle will serve as Bellflower’s interim city manager while a consulting firm searches for a replacement for Mike Egan, who has resigned effective Aug. 25 to become city manager in Norwalk. Mingle joined Bellflower in August,1995 as the city’s first public safety coordinator, heading up the city’s Public [...]
EIGHT AREA MAYORS URGE LOWENTHAL TO RESCIND SUPPORT OF KILLING RDA
Mayors from eight cities in the 27th State Senate District of Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, are urging him to rescind his support of eliminating redevelopment agencies to help balance the state budget, saying that would cost millions to California cities. That legislation has been made part of the current budget signed by Gov. Jerry [...]
BROWN SIGNS BILLS ENDING REDEVELOPMENT AGENCIES DESPITE THREATENED LAWSUITS
Governor Jerry Brown today (June 28) signed multiple budget-related bills sent to him by Democrats holding majorities in the state Senate and Assembly that among other things eliminate local redevelopment agencies and direct resolution of their activities and create an alternative “voluntary” redevelopment program. Gov. Brown proposed phasing out local redevelopment agencies shortly after taking [...]
MARY THOITS AMONG 27 SENIORS HONORED FOR LIVES OF VOLUNTEERISM
Mary Thoits of the Long Beach City College Senior Studies Center is among 27 seniors honored by Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe on the 46th annual Older Americans Recognition Day for the contributions they make to the quality of life by volunteering.
BELLFLOWER’S GOT BLUES SO BAD ITS COUNCIL WON’T LET YOU SING ‘EM
The Bellflower City Council has overturned the decision of its planning commission and unanimously rejected an application by the owners of Long Beach’s sorely missed Blue Dog Tavern to reopen in a long-empty former firehouse in the struggling city’s ghostly downtown. After a two-hour interview with the Blue Dog’s co-owners, Cheri Dessero and Robert Martinson, the council decided the blues club does [...]
IT’S SHAPING UP AS A VERY FAT TUESDAY
Happy Mardi Gras … and it is shaping up as very Fat Tuesday: there are elections in Bellflower, Cerritos, Lakewood and Norwalk, and the Long Beach City Council will convene in special session to consider it’s response to Monday’s vote by the Redevelopment Agency to transfer all its properties and assets to the City. In [...]
IF INCUMBENTS WIN, BELLFLOWER COUNCIL STAYS WHITE, MALE, OVER 50
Three incumbents, two who have served on the Bellflower City Council for more than 20 years, are seeking re-election March 8. If voters return them to office, the increasingly ethnically diverse city’s five-member council will continue to be entirely composed of white males over 50 years old. The incumbents are Councilman Randy Bomgaars, first elected [...]
BELLFLOWER COUNCIL CONSIDERS BIG CUTS IN WAKE OF UTILITY TAX FAILURE
A smorgasbord of cuts, ranging from employee layoffs to closing the municipal swimming pool and selling Caruthers Park for a residential housing project, is under study by the City Council. Possible decisions on some are expected at the next regular meeting Feb. 14. As directed by council, City Manager Mike Egan laid out a list [...]
ALL WRITEY! A SAMPLING OF YOUR COMMENTS, CRITICISMS, LOVE NOTES & WITTICISMS
STATE GRANT FINALLY COMES THROUGH FOR LONG-PLANNED BELLFLOWER PARK [ By Arnold Adler / Herald American ] What’s great about it is after the children spend an hour running and playing, they can come back to the picnic basket, have a sandwich, lay down on the picnic blanket, and allow the highly carcinogenic ammonia emitted from countless [...]
STATE GRANT FINALLY COMES THROUGH FOR LONG-PLANNED BELLFLOWER PARK
BELLFLOWER—Work on the long-planned $2.3 million Palm Linear Park—a 3.5-acre swath along the south side of the Artesia (91) Freeway—is moving again following the funding of a long-delayed state grant of $1.8 million. The park site is a strip of surplus state land leased from the Department of Transportation and extending along the north side [...]
13-VOTE LOSS LOOKS, UM, UNLUCKY FOR BELLFLOWER’S QUALITY OF LIFE
Now that the defeat of a proposed two-percent hike in the utility tax is official—it lost a recount of the Nov. 2 referendum by 13 votes—the Bellflower City Council begins the job of dismantling many of the city’s crucial public services. The five-man panel has unanimously instructed city staff to report back Jan. 13 with [...]
TODAY IS FIRST FILING DEADLINE FOR THREE CITY COUNCIL RACES
Paperwork is coming due for candidates to appear on the ballot for March 8 city council elections in Norwalk and Paramount, but fields in the races have already begun to expand. According to state law, the regular filing deadline is Friday, unless an incumbent does not run, in which case the deadline is extended to [...]
BELLFLOWER MAYOR ‘OPTIMISTIC’ THAT VOTERS WILL PASS UTILITY TAX INCREASE
Bellflower Mayor Ray Dunton says he believes voters will approve Measure A, which would temporarily increase the city’s utility tax by two percent—from the current 5 percent to 7 percent—when they go to the polls Nov. 2. “I am very optimistic that once educated [about the fiscal circumstances], people will support it,” said Dunton, who [...]
VALLEY CHRISTIAN SECOND-GRADE TEACHER RECEIVES NASA AWARD FOR SPACE-STATION HOOKUP
Pam Leestma, a second grade teacher at Valley Christian Elementary School, and a New York teacher named Neme Alperstein have received the 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The two elementary school teachers teamed up last year to conduct the first coast-to-coast television hookup via the International Space Station, [...]
DON JERGLER: ANYBODY GOT A SPARE PAIR OF ROSE-COLORED GLASSES?
When you’re in the Long Beach area and the title of the latest UCLA Anderson Forecast Is "The Uncertain Economy" and you're already depressed about your economic future, well, maybe you ought to not bother even reading it. Then again, uncertainty is better than doomsday.
WHEN BELLFLOWER COULDN’T AFFORD ANNUAL CAR SHOW, ANYMORE, THE NOON LIONS STEPPED IN AS SPONSOR
It’s still possible to enter a vehicle in the Bellflower Boulevard Car Show, on the very day of the 12th annual version of the event is held … well … on Bellflower Boulevard. That didn’t look very likely a couple of years ago, when a budget crisis forced the City of Bellflower to cut back [...]
VECTOR CONTROL: PARKING METERS PROVE BAD TIMES CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE
It's the 75th anniversary of the installation of the first parking meter---so be sure and party like it’s National Unexpectedly Finding a Bump Somewhere On Your Body Day. It’s natural to assume they were invented by Hitler. But like so many things destroying this country, we have the South to thank.
BELLFLOWER CITY MANAGER OPPOSES ELECTRIC VEHICLE DEALERSHIP ON EMPTY FORD LOT
Although Bellflower has been hit hard financially by the recent loss of the Ford West car dealership, City Manager Mike Egan has appealed to the City Council a decision by the Planning Commission to allow a Long Beach electric vehicle company to move onto the empty three-acre lot on Artesia Blvd. Egan said he wants [...]
ALL WRITEY!! A SAMPLING OF YOUR COMMENTS / CRITICISMS / LOVE NOTES / WITTICISMS
DAVE WIELENGA’S “IT GETS YOU THINKING ABOUT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS—AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS,” JULY 12 Fundie nutbags will never stop pushing the separation wall; we must be ever vigilant. / HOWARD X I struggle to see how allowing a piece of art, which contains no words and is open to interpretation by the viewer, [...]
VECTOR CONTROL: FROM HERE, BIG DRUG BUST MEANS END OF LB BUDGET PROBLEM
Here's the way it goes: we seize the drugs, we sell the drugs back into the drug community, and then we seize the drugs again to sell them again. A perfect machine, as it was when Ronald Reagan first developed the scam in the ‘80s.
IT GETS YOU THINKING ABOUT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS—AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS
Hopscotching along the line separating church and state, the Bellflower City Council on Saturday presented a private group with free use of a prime plot of public land---for an art installation created in honor of 16th-century Christian leader John Calvin to promote the Ten Commandments.
BELLFLOWER COUNCIL DECLARES EMERGENCY, ASKS VOTERS TO INCREASE UTILITY TAX
Declaring a fiscal emergency, the Bellflower City Council has voted 5-0 to place a five-year, 2-percent utility tax increase on the Nov. 2 ballot. If approved by voters, the 2-percent hike would bring an additional $1.6 million a year for the five years, allow the city to balance the 2010-11 budget and give the city [...]
BELLFLOWER TO RE-BID LANDSCAPING FOR GREENWAY TRAIL
Under orders from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the City of Bellflower reluctantly rejected all bids for landscaping of the 2.3-mile, $3 million Greenway Trail, recently opened along the abandoned right-of-way of the Pacific Union Red Car line. The MTA, which owns the property, was concerned about possible mistakes in the bidding process and a protest [...]
SUPERVISOR KNABE ALLOTS $2.5 MILLION TO REHAB SAN GABRIEL RIVER BIKE PATH
CERRITOS – A $2.5 million project to rehabilitate portions of the San Gabriel River bike path in Cerritos and Lakewood will continue, Supervisor Don Knabe has announced. “It is important that the bike paths along our riverbeds are safe,” said Knabe of a project that will be paid for in Fourth District Capital Improvement funds. [...]
BELLFLOWER TRYING TO REDEVELOP ITS ECONOMY WITHOUT RIPPING OUT ITS HEART
The City of Bellflower’s time capsule of a downtown is both heartwarmingly quaint and heartbreakingly … well without a heartbeat. Bellflower Boulevard’s well-preserved architecture and its embalmed business district can probably both be traced to its citizens’ long opposition to creating a Redevelopment Agency, an orientation rooted in their suspicion that eminent domain might be used [...]
