No lynching flier this time, but Town Meeting II went down tonight at the Jackie Robinson center with Mayor Bill Bogaard, council member Chris Holden, Jacque Robinson and City Manager Cynthia Kurtz present. Victor Gordo stopped by briefly.

I threw an update up here, story will be in Friday's paper. Posted below as well ...

PASADENA -- A prominent African American developer accused Mayor Bill Bogaard of lying at a community forum organized to air grievances about the handling of selecting a developer for the Heritage Square redevelopment project.

Although the agenda of the meeting held inside the Jackie Robinson Center was to address a variety of topics, it was Heritage Square its organizers and participants seemed most keen to discuss.

Bogaard attended the meeting with council members Chris Holden, Jacque Robinson and City Manager Cynthia Kurtz.

Most of the questions were put to the mayor about his role in the process that led to the council unanimously ending its "pre-negotiations" with developer Danny Bakewell after Bakewell's financial partner, Century Housing, pulled out of the deal.

Considerable hostility and references of racial inequity were directed at the mayor by Bakewell supporters who feel the developer was eliminated unfairly.

It was Century's departure that precipitated the need to reset the process, the mayor said, and it had been a mistake for city staff to create the impression the community panel convened to evaluate proposals had the final say in who would build the one-block site at Fair Oaks Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard.
"The city got on the wrong track with many in the community by suggesting the RFP [Request for Proposal] process led directly to the selection," he said.

His statement that the council did not receive complete information about the financial qualifications of the developer prompted Danny Bakewell, Jr. to interrupt the discussion.

"For you to say we did not have the financial capacity is an outright lie," he said.

It was the second such meeting organized by the Pasadena-Altadena Black Coalition. A flier circulated last month for the first depicted an African American man lynched from the dome of City Hall and accusing Bogaard of racism. www.insidesocal.com/pasadenapolitics

Posted by Todd at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

As per the business page the other day, Earthlink's contraction means it's back to the drawing board for bringing for-profit wireless to Pasadena's light poles.

From my Aug. 2, 2006 story:

PASADENA - Saturating the entirety of Pasadena with an invisible stream of data came closer to reality Monday with the selection of a native-born company to build a municipal wireless network.

By this time next year - and at no cost to the city - EarthLink Inc. plans to install wireless transmission points in hundreds of street lights to offer paid access to the Internet for business, residents and city government.
...

Given the volatile metabolism of wireless technology, where the life-span of products and industry standards can be counted in months, Pratt said EarthLink was important to the longevity of the network.

EarthLink has promised to fold 12 percent of its future revenues from the network into maintaining and improving it, he added.

And according to Gordo, the city wanted to pick a viable company that would likely remain in business to operate the network.

The company's 12 years of operation make it practically an elder among the flare and fade of Internet technology companies.

Posted by Todd at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)