According to an email Sunroom Desk received from LaBonge’s office:

…the Mayor and City Council have committed to build a new Alternative Technology Site within each of the city’s six solid wastesheds, and each council member was asked to identify a potential site in his/her council district to be studied by the Bureau of Sanitation for this purpose. Councilman LaBonge suggested the River Glen area of Atwater, near the Levitz site but not necessarily the existing building. The Bureau of Sanitation is currently conducting an analysis of this and other sites around the City and will report their findings and feasibility recommendations to the Council members.

City council candidate Lenore Solis has warned that the facility is being planned with the Levitz property as a short-listed site, and that hundreds of trucks could be driving refuse loads daily to the North Atwater/Glendale border. Solis brought the issue to the February 17, 2009 Glendale city council meeting during oral communications. Following her comments, both Public Works Director Stephen Zurn and City Manager Jim Starbird replied in response to Mayor John Drayman’s inquiry that Los Angeles had no proposals on the table, and that the city of Glendale is on record as strongly opposing such a site (link here to the video archive of the meeting; Solis’ comments begin at 3 hours, 2 minutes into the meeting, followed by the responses of Zurn and Starbird.)

Solis also brought up the issue at the March 2, 2009 Glendale Homeowners’ Coordinating Council meeting. Pelanconi Estate Homeowners Association President Patrick Masihi differed with Solis, cited the inputs from Zurn and Starbird, and stated that the city of Los Angeles has no published plans or proposals for such a facility.

The city of Los Angeles has conducted a three-year round of workshops throughout its districts on the subject of future solid waste disposal options. The next workshop scheduled for the North-Central district (which includes Atwater) is next Tuesday, March 24, 6 p.m., and the Los Angeles Citywide Zero Waste Conference is Saturday, May 30, 2009, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Locations and other information are published on this meeting announcement.

Kimber posed his own question, the first of the evening, to candidate Laura Friedman, asking her whether she thought the Glendale City Council, now exclusively male, would benefit from a female voice. Friedman was the only female candidate present, as Lenore Solis did not appear at this forum.

Friedman took this leading question as a gift. As Kimber reported, she suggested that a woman on the city council would naturally bring a woman’s perspective to issues facing the city. Kimber didn’t record the second half of her answer, though. Friedman went on to say that women, more than men, have the interests of children uppermost in their minds. After inserting his own thoughts about the “moderation” a woman’s voice brings to politics, Kimber writes:

After Friedman spoke I asked the gentlemen if they wanted to comment on the “gender issue” and interestingly (but predictably) enough, not a hand went up.

Kimber must not remember every detail; and as moderator, he wasn’t responsible for taking notes. According to my notes, candidate Vartan Gharpetian did raise his hand. Gharpetian took issue with Friedman’s assertion that women consider children and the issues affecting children more than men. He mentioned that he was an active parent of three children, and was very concerned about his children and their future in the city of Glendale.

Several of the male candidates running for office are fathers; at least four of them (Gharpetian, Edward Lafian, Aram Kazazian, and Bruce Philpott) have mentioned this fact repeatedly in public forums. Their effort to cast themselves as involved parents reflects their knowledge, as candidates at least, that the needs of children in this community are important to voters and citizens.

None of the three candidates asked to respond to this question were of Armenian descent. In fact, there are only four candidates out of the twelve running for city council who are not of Armenian descent. So the question should rightfully have been posed to both Armenian-Americans and others. Of the three who were asked, Michael Teahan deplored Turkish stonewalling against genocide recognition, Laura Friedman said yes, and Lenore Solis said no.

There are compelling arguments on either side, in this editor’s opinion. There are many Americans who believe that ceremonies involving the United States flag should reflect only this country’s concerns and commemorations. However, this act by the city of Glendale could be interpreted as a free-speech protest by its citizens against the United States government, which to date has not officially recognized the Armenian genocide.

Other forum moderators could subsequently pose this question to the eight Armenian American candidates, but this highly-charged, partisan issue will have little to do with how Glendale as a city is managed in the coming years. As the Glendale News Press noted, concerns about the huge city budget deficit and how to balance cuts in city services with preservation of the city’s quality of life, are where most candidates are focusing their campaign message.

Check the Glendale Community Calendar (on the right) for upcoming City Council candidate forums community associations are hosting several during the next few weeks. Citizens have several more chances to hear the candidates present their agendas and their reasons for wishing to serve as a Glendale city council member.