LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE

By Mirjam SwansonThe Outlook

LCF Rallies fora Troubled Child

‘Battle’ for a Cause

LCF Residents Urged to Challenge Sediment Project

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Pasadena, CAPermit No. 261

About 30 concerned, con-nected citizens took up

sediment-related issues over breakfast Thursday when Tim Brick, managing director of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, offered background on the lawsuit chal-lenging the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ approval of the Devil’s Gate Reservoir Sedi-ment Removal Project.

The suit, filed on Dec. 11 by Brick’s organization and the Pas-adena Audubon Society, charges the county with violating the California Environmental Quality Act.

Supervisors voted 4-1 to ap-prove the project, which calls for the removal 2.4 million cubic yards of the sediment that’s accu-mulated behind the Devil’s Gate Dam in order to restore the ca-pacity to contain a major debris flow.

“We feel the voices of the public weren’t really heard during the environmental impact review process,” Brick said. “Obviously, we know that you need to do something in terms of sediment removal from the dam; however, there are natural ways to do it, to go slow, to do it on a more careful and consistent basis … rather than going in with the big dig every 20 years.”

During the EIR process, the county Flood Control District fielded more than 1,500 com-ments, many of them urging the

county to take a longer, slower approach in order to better pro-tect open space and wild habitat while lessening the potentially negative impact on air quality and traffic related to 425 trucks carrying loads of sediment through local neighborhoods for a three- to five-year span.

In response to those concerns, project manager Ken Zimmer said in November that the county reduced the amount of sediment it plans to pull out annually from 1.2 million cubic yards per year to 880,000 cubic yards.

That remained significantly more than the 220,000 cubic yards proposed by a working group that included Pasadena city staff and knowledgable, con-cerned citizens, including Brick.

“I appreciate the people ... who would rather proceed slowly,” Zimmer said last year. “But, ac-

tually, you guys aren’t taking that risk, the county actually holds that risk. We would be respon-sible if anything would happen.”

He said 650 parcels of land along the Arroyo Seco and the stability of the 110 Freeway (be-tween Orange Grove Avenue and the 5 Freeway) are at risk in the event of a flood.

At Thursday’s breakfast meeting at Dish restaurant, Brick downplayed the likelihood of such a flood and appealed to La Cañada Flintridge residents to take an active interest in the suit by describing the city’s “unique role” in the situation.

“You’re going to bear an awful lot of the impacts of the project,” he told his audience, which in-cluded representatives of the Flintridge Riding Club, the Rose Bowl Riders, La Cañada United Methodist Church, the La Ca-ñada Unified School District and the La Cañada Flintridge Edu-cational Foundation, as well as other schools and child centers near the project site.

Brick also shared some of the history of the Hahamongna Wa-tershed Park, the current state of which Sen. Carol Liu helped es-tablish when she was an LCF city councilwoman.

“Hahamongna has always been a special place, not just to Pasade-nans and Altadenans, but to La Cañada as well,” Brick said.

Ellen Multari, the LCUSD Governing Board vice president,

T H U R S D AY, J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 V O L . 1 8 N O . 3

PCY Aquarium Outing, Page 29

By Mirjam SwansonThe Outlook

See SEDIMENT, page 16

Tim Brick, managing director of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, discusses the lawsuit challenging the county’s approval of the Devil’s Gate Reser-voir Sediment Removal Project.

By Mirjam SwansonThe Outlook

For one evening last week, the Habit was part preschool

playground, part popular ham-burger joint and pure La Cañada Flintridge.

Community members of all ages came out to rally around Jude DeMatteis and his family, turning dinner out into a noble cause.

Jude, 18 months, was born with an as-yet-unidentified condi-

tion that prevents his body from processing proteins in food. The little boy has suffered ulcers in his esophagus and adhesions in his intestines. Because he can’t have even a crumb of food without it causing serious side effects, doc-tors have equipped him with a feeding tube to provide him with needed nutrients.

A whole team of medical ex-perts at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles hasn’t been able to crack Jude’s condition, which also in-

Richie Maloof (from left), Will McCracken, Garett Gross, Jack Webster and Kevin Maloof were among several area college and high school students who took to the Rose Bowl field last Saturday for “Battle of the Bowl,” which raised money for Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services. See additional photos, page 9.

OUTLOOK photo

Jude DeMatteis, center, is flanked by sister Jenna, dad Jason, mom Jasmine and brother Jack during the fundraiser at The Habit Burger Grill, where friends from the Community Center of La Cañada Flintridge gathered.

See JUDE, page 8

Photo by Melissa Kobe / OUTLOOK

Golden Apple Award Goes to Mazin

The La Cañada Flintridge fa-ther who says he isn’t an ac-

tivist has been honored for his work fighting for a cause.

The La Cañada Unified School District named Craig Mazin its 2015 Golden Apple Award winner for his volunteerism on behalf of the district.

A professional screenwriter and Princeton graduate, Mazin said he was surprised and flat-tered by the recognition, which

Craig Mazin

his wife, Melissa, assured him is a big deal.

Mazin is a founding member of the LCUSD Task Force for Fundraising and Fiscal Aware-ness, past president of the La Cañada Flintridge Educational Foundation and a trustee of the

See MAZIN, page 7

La Cañada Flintridge Outlook16 Thursday, January 15, 2015 COMMUNITY

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1 (MCY) Million Cubic Yard, 2 (FEIR) Final Environmental Impact Review

0

1

3

5

7

2

4

6

8 MCY1

7.5 MCY Basin Capacity

3.7 MCY Current Level

3.1 MCY Historic Level

2.5 MCY Pasadena Target

1.3 MCY FEIR2 Target

LEVEL OF SEDIMENT IN THE HAHAMONGNA BASIN

SEDIMENTcontd. from page 1

Source: SaveHahamongna.com

spoke to the group about what she consid-ered the county’s “dismissive” response to her board’s concerns regarding air quality.

“We’ve been assessing these issues mostly from a student health perspective,” Multari said. “We really felt like the com-ments we put forth in regard to air quality and particulates were met very curtly.”

Brick said he empathized: “That’s why we’re doing the lawsuit, candidly, because we felt just like you felt: ‘Hey, they didn’t an-swer our questions, they didn’t respond in a real way to our concerns.’”

Brick said the city’s residents can help advocate for a less impactful project by en-couraging groups and individuals to sup-port the suit financially. Efforts to spread the word also are important, he said, and he anticipates a loud public outcry when the project starts in earnest.

“I can guarantee you, as soon as this

project goes through, there is going to be a storm of protest from people who never have heard what you heard today,” he said.

Mitchell Tsai, the attorney representing the Arroyo Seco Foundation in the suit, said that for the time being, no injunction has been filed to try to stop the plan from proceeding. That’s mostly because several likely time-consuming steps remain be-fore the project can start. Those include acquiring permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the L.A. Regional Water Quality Control Board and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Tsai said.

After listening to the presentation and ensuing conversation, lifelong LCF resident Susan Whatley Miller said she wasn’t sure what the right answer was.

“There’s a real purpose to that dam; I’ve seen the power of that water,” she said, re-calling the storm in 1973 that pushed water over the dam and caused the collapse of the then-under-construction 210 Freeway bridge. “But there are a lot of issues that need to be considered.”