Need a job?

Baldwin Park’s got an opening.

The city is looking for a finance director. This four-page brochure explains the position, qualifications and compensation.
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The position pays up to $150,000 a year with a $300 monthly car allowance, a $75 monthly cell phone allowance and a $1,200 monthly allowance for health and dental benefits. Plus retirement benefits….

 

CARA founder out for now

I just received word that the founder of the Baldwin Park-based Community Alliance for Redevelopment Accountability is going to be out for some time recovering from back surgery.

While friends of James Treasure hope he’ll be back soon, it’ll all depend on his recovery.

Drum roll please….

Think your city is hot stuff?

Find out this weekend. Reporter Daniel Tedford is working on a story about the top cities in the San Gabriel Valley. Tedford is using a CNN/Money Magazine formula to rank the cities based on housing affordability, job growth, marriage and divorce rates, commutes, school test scores, and crime rates.

Just a heads up, you’ll likely be VERY surprised to see whose at the top and bottom of the list.

 

Trouble in paradise?

10954-caraoffice.jpgIt seems James Treasure is no longer with CARA, the Community Alliance for Redevelopment Accountability.

It’s no wonder the self-proclaimed founder of the Baldwin Park-based group against the downtown redevelopment project hasn’t been calling me back.

Not sure the reason for his departure quite yet, but I’ll hopefully be finding out soon.

Lujan takes a secretary job…

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Well not quite. But I just got this e-mail from La Puente Mayor Louie Lujan. He can add secretary of the Hispanic Elected Local Officials to his resum:

Orlando, Fla., Nov. 13, 2008 – Bridgeport, Conn., Council Member Carlos Silva was elected the 2009 president of the Hispanic Elected Local Officials (HELO) constituency group during the annual membership meeting at the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Congress of Cities.

Silva was elected to the Bridgeport City Council in 2003 and to the Town Committee in 2004. He is a member of the Black and Hispanic Caucus, Latinos for Action in Bridgeport, and the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO).

Other officers elected during the HELO membership meeting include:

1st Vice President: New Haven, Conn., Alderman Sergio Rodriguez
2nd Vice President: Carson, Calif., City Treasurer Karen Avilla
Treasurer: Roeland Park, Kan., Council Member Adrienne Foster
Secretary: La Puente, Calif., Mayor Louie Lujan
Immediate Past President: Avondale, Ariz., Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers
HELO also set its agenda for the upcoming year designating its priority efforts as the issues of immigration and obesity.

Employee perk could get the axe ***Update

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I’m writing a story for tomorrow’s paper about employee holiday gift cards in La Puente. Looks like they might be on the chopping block because of budget constraints…..

The City Council will consider Tuesday eliminating annual employee holiday gift cards in an effort to save more than $4,000 annually.

The city has been handing out the gift cards at the end of each calendar year since 1999. It began as an alternative to a holiday party, and cost the city about $1,700 in its first year when employees were getting $50 each, according to city staff reports.

In 2005, the amounts were increased to $75 for full-time employees and $25 for part-time employees despite the fact that the city’s holiday party had been brought back.

If the City Council axes the long-time tradition, city coffers would save an extra $4,230 this fiscal year, staff reports show.

What do you guys think? Fiscal responsibility or penny pinching?

 

***I just got off the phone with officials in Whittier and Pasadena. I wanted to get a feel for whether or SGV cities were cutting back on holiday employee perks. It looks like they’re not.

Both Whittier and Pasadena provide holiday breakfasts for their employees. Whittier Assistant City Manager Nancy Mendez said most of the preparation is done in-house, so it doesn’t cost much.

Pasadena spokeswoman Ann Erdman said her city’s holiday party would be scaled back, but not cancelled.

Both cities offer no holiday bonuses to employees.

“There are (non) … that go to employees on the taxpayers’ dimes or anybody else’s for that matter,” Erdman said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

 

Open, open open

19977-opening1.JPGThe La Puente Community Center is finally open, after four years of waiting.

Saturday’s event was well-attended. Here are some photos of all of the festivities…

 

 

 

 

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Cluck, cluck

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Reporter Rebecca Kimitch wrote this story for today’s paper about the Chinese American Live Poultry slaughterhouse in Rosemead. This place has been an issue for years…

Store owners say they offer the San Gabriel Valley’s immigrants a taste of the old country and keep them from manhandling live chickens in their backyards and garages.

But some neighbors say a slaughterhouse has no business operating in the city, which lately has been looking for a facelift. They also say this store in particular has been bad for the neighborhood because it violates laws, reeks of rotting chickens and flushes blood down drains.

“After all this time, this is not the kind of business that should be in Rosemead,” resident Jean Hall said at last week’s planning commission meeting.

Regardless, the city is opening the door for more such establishments in Rosemead.

Whether they will come depends on the pocketbooks of the newly arrived and the tastes of those already here.

The planning commission voted

 5-0 last week to recommend the City Council change the municipal code to allow poultry slaughtering in the city. The council may vote on the issue at its December meeting.

Slaughterhouses have been prohibited in Rosemead since 2001. CAL Poultry opened a decade before that and was allowed to stay under the condition that it does not expand.

Two years ago complaints from neighbors began to pour in to the city. Chickens ran loose in the streets, blood was flushed down drains and broken eggs rotting in the sun created horrible odors, they said.

Last year, the city tried to force the business to move but ran into challenges since it is legally allowed to be there.

CAL Poultry owners now want to make improvements to the slaughterhouse, including raising the roof six feet to reduce odors and limit its impact on nearby homes and businesses.

They need the change in municipal code in order to do so and their expansion is the only reason the city is even considering the amendment. But in making the request, CAL Poultry could bring competition.

Anybody got any stories about this place, good, bad or indifferent?