Stan’s Obligatory Blog

There are a couple of local political issues going on here in Pasadena right now. So I just wanted to mention them.

First is Measure A, which is an attempt at a referendum on trying to get an NFL team at the Rose Bowl. Los Angeles has been without a football team since 1995, and we’ve been getting along quite nicely without it. There have been efforts to get a team back here, but the NFL always seems to want the city to pay for either a new stadium or major renovations to an old one. This seems like a bad deal. Now they say that having a team would bring untold riches to Pasadena, which seems doubtful. What it would do is cause all manner of disruption to the area around the Rose Bowl. And again, we’re doing fine without it.

I read part of the text of the actual proposal. I didn’t read the whole thing, because it’s 96 pages long. But they laid out the basic argument for it in the first 10 pages. They say that the city is currently on the hook for several million dollars worth of maintenance and improvements to the stadium. They claim that the NFL would pay for this and more. That the NFL would sink something like 500 million dollars into the stadium. This seems very far-fetched. Judging by the past, the NFL usually wants to spend that much money on its stadiums, but they prefer to spend someone else’s money. Like ours. So even if this passes, it seems unlikely that the NFL would actually agree to its terms.

The second issue is that someone has bought the old Shakey’s Pizza at 2180 E. Foothill Blvd and wants to build a strip club at the site. Apparently, the city made rules years ago that forced all the ‘adult’ businesses like that out, and it seems that they want to keep it that way. But the courts decided some time ago that cities have to make some accomodations in their zoning to allow these sorts of things somewhere, and apparently the old Shakey’s qualifies. So the city council is trying to figure out a way to change the rules to not allow it. Changing the rules to not allow something is just because someone is uncomfortable with it is just not fair. And they are bandying about all sorts of improbable statistics in support of this, like claiming that a strip club would cause a 100% increase in crime and such. Sheesh. We’ve lived near things like this before, and it’s not that big of a deal.

You can read about the latest on this at the Pasadena Star-News web site.

But what it all really comes down to is: we hate football, but we like strip clubs. So there.

Route map and photo locations

We have a couple more weeks before the time change, so today I went riding with Vikki at lunchtime again. We did the fast-becoming-classic Lida Loop.

It was a perfect fall day today. The air was cool, the sun was warm, and it was stunningly clear. A perfect day for riding.

We rode from the office, going through Old Town to get to the Rose Bowl. Then we went up the hill on Lida. On the way up, I saw that the coyote paw that I saw last week was still there. I thought some animal or another would have taken it away to gnaw on by now.

When we got to the top, we flew down the other side into La Cañada and then back into Pasadena. The one picture I took was of the view of the mountains from the road just below JPL.

Crossing Pasadena on Mendocino, we rode to just before the Altadena Country Club. Then it was straight down the big hill back to the office.

As I said, it was a perfect day for riding.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling