Jun
29
Fallen hero returns Wednesday at Los Al Base
Filed Under Community News, Inspiration, National Issues, The Base | 1 Comment
(6/29/2010, Los Alamitos, info supplied by Laura Hertzog, Base Community Relations) The Joint Forces Training Base will be welcoming home a Fallen Hero this Wednesday, June 30, 2010.
Hero Mission for Cpl. Claudio Patino is scheduled for Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. The public is requested to arrive between 10:15 – 10:40 to allow time for parking and walking to the location.
Directions can be obtained from the Guard at the entrance to the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base, 11206 Lexington Drive, south of Katella. Photo identification is required for entrance to the Base.
USMC Cpl. Claudio Patino IV, 22, of Yorba Linda, Calif., died June 22 while supporting Read more
Jun
27
Your reporting & comments on 6/28 Public Hearing on City Budget
Filed Under City Budget, City Council Meetings | 3 Comments
8 p.m. Monday update: By now the hearing’s been held, and the staff report is up. If any of you happened to attend the meeting or watch on LosAlTV3, your reporting and comments would be appreciated.
3 p.m. update. Staff report link is now good–click here.
12:30 p.m., Monday, 6/28 update: Still no working link on the agenda to the staff report, unfortunately. Details below.
(6/27/2010, Los Alamitos, CA) The Los Alamitos City Council is holding a Special Meeting this Monday at 5:30 p.m. for the purposes of:
- Holding the required public hearing on the Annual Budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, apparently with a million dollar plus deficit (more on that later)
- Adopting the budget resolution.
- Adopting the city’s fiscal year appropriations limit in accordance with state law (the “Gann limit”).
Interestingly, the appropriations limit the city is set to adopt is almost 70% higher Read more
Jun
25
John Wooden Memorial Service broadcast live Saturday @ 11 on KCAL 9
Filed Under Inspiration | Leave a Comment
(6/25/2010) Saturday, June 26, beginning at 11 a.m. in Pauley Pavilion, UCLA will host a public memorial service on behalf of the Wooden family to celebrate the life of Coach John Wooden.
I had the privilege of attending UCLA during the height of Coach Wooden’s success, and have long admired him for his character, his skills in teaching, mentoring, building teamwork, and discipline.
Bruins and sports fans around the world have expressed interest in attending the memorial or gathering informally with fellow Bruins to remember Coach. The memorial service, expected to last 90 minutes, will be broadcast live at 11:00 by both KCAL 9 and Fox Prime Ticket in Southern California.
Too much good stuff
If you also want to watch the USA Ghana World Cup Round of 16 Soccer Game at 11:30 a.m. (on ABC 7), you’ll need to tape the Wooden Memorial, or vice versa. The problem is, UCLA’s amazing men’s baseball team will be playing the elimination game to decide if they make it to the finals of the College World Series at–you guessed it–11 a.m. Saturday morning (all times Pacific Daylight Savings). I plan on taping the Memorial as well as the half hour special at 12:30 on FSW and saving both for a long time, while flipping between the College World Series and the World Cup. . . . and, oh yeah, watching the grandkids.
Sound like a busy Saturday morning!
Wooden links
“John Wooden’s life was a love letter,” L.A.Times columnist T.J.Simers’ tribute.
UCLA’s Wooden Tribute page with videos, additional links.
As always, your thoughts and comments, including any postings about the Memorial Service itself, are welcome. Click here to post a or read a comment: Read more
Jun
22
Meeting for Vets at Base this Thursday
Filed Under Local events, News you can use, The Base | Leave a Comment
(Los Alamitos, 6/22/2010) If you know any vets, especially any recently returned from active duty, you might want to use the “share this” button at the bottom of this post to forward this information.
The California Department of Veterans’ Affairs is holding a series of “All Hands” meetings across California to convey a variety of important information about benefits and other news to California Veterans, and the local meeting is scheduled for this Thursday evening, June 24, 2010, at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos.
Here are Read more
Jun
21
Los Alamitos Noise Advisory from the Base
Filed Under The Base | Leave a Comment
(7/22/2010, Los Alamitos) (by Laura Hertzog) California National Guard soldiers will be using Los Alamitos Army Airfield in preparation for their August deployment now through Aug 15, 2010.
Local residents can expect to see and hear helicopters throughout the training. The majority of these missions will be conducted during normal flight hours, yet part of the required training will occur Read more
Jun
21
Your reporting and comments on tonight’s Los Alamitos City Council Meeting (June 21, 2010)
Filed Under City Council Meetings | 34 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 6/21/2010) Once again, you get to be the reporter and the commentator. The rules are simple:
Tell us what you observed that you think is significant. Please do not assume the reader saw the meeting–lots of people don’t get cable–a simple explanation makes it easier for people to understand.
As always, try to focus on issues, use family friendly language, and try to be somewhat diplomatic.
Thanks for Read more
Jun
20
Improvements made in Trash Contract, but are they enough?
Filed Under 2010 Issues, City Council, George Briggeman | 4 Comments
(6/20/2010, Los Alamitos updated 6/21)The agenda and staff reports are now posted for Monday night’s 7 p.m. Los Alamitos City Council Meeting, and they reveal a number of interesting changes that have been made to the proposed Solid Waste Contract with Consolidated Disposal.
The Contract has been the subject of considerable controversy, especially the Council’s going with the second highest of the five “qualified” bidders, a choice which appears to cost local residents and businesses at least six and a half million dollars over the next ten years.
Improvements to the contract made during subsequent negotiations include Read more
Jun
18
Public Hearing on possible $7 million trash overcharge set for 7 p.m. Monday
Filed Under City Council, City Council Meetings, George Briggeman | 1 Comment
(Los Alamitos, 6/18/2010) After a two week postponement from the date announced by Mayor Marilyn Poe a month ago, it looks like the Los Alamitos City Council will finally hold that public hearing on their decision to go with the second highest bidder as the exclusive trash contractor for all Los Alamitos residents and businesses.
The Council majority seems bound and determined to move forward with the bid from Consolidated Disposal, successor to Briggeman Disposal who had successfully obtained the contact without any bidding for the past twenty years.
Members of the Council majority and city staff seem convinced that Read more
Jun
12
(6/12/2010, Los Alamitos) Apparently buoyed by his election to the Republican Party’s 67th Assembly District Central Committee this week, former Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose may be running for City Council this November!
On this past Wednesday, Editor Dolores Barr of OC180News.com asked Grose about about Read more
Jun
9
Dean Grose wins Republican Central Committee seat
Filed Under Dean Grose, Uncategorized | 20 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 6/9/2010) Former Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose appeared to continue somewhat of a political comeback yesterday, coming in 5th out of 12 candidates for the Republican Party’s County Central Committee for the 67th Assembly District. (Seats went to the top six candidates, see official results in table below.)
Dean got more votes than four of the six incumbents, and he handily beat former Read more
Jun
7
Your reporting, thoughts, & comments on tonight’s City Council Meeting
Filed Under City Council Meetings | 5 Comments
(Los Alamitos, 6/7/2010) Once again it’s time for you, the public to report what you saw, what you liked, what you didn’t like, and what you thought about tonight’s City Council meeting.
If you want to follow along on the official agenda, click here. Once you have the agenda open (probably in another window), you can click any of the blue links for the item referenced in a pdf file.
Most important, Read more
Jun
7
Animal control, stop signs, but no trash on tonight’s Council Agenda
Filed Under City Council | Leave a Comment
(6/7/2010, Los Alamitos, CA) At tonight’s 7 p.m. regular Council meeting the council has several items of interest on the agenda (click here for agenda & links to staff reports). As we indicated here elsewhere, however, the public hearing on the ten year solid waste contract has been postponed, probably to the next regular meeting in two weeks.
The waste contract, where the “lowest qualified bidder” turned out to be the second highest bidder, has attracted considerable discussion and opposition.
If you have a chance to tune in on LosAlTV3 or to attend in person, please use the comment box below to report anything of significance you observed as well as your thoughts and insights.
Your thoughts and comments on the agenda itself are also Read more
Jun
4
(June 4, 2010, Los Alamitos) Tonight one of my heroes passed into eternity. A living legend, if there ever was one, no longer lives among us, but he lives in the lives and hearts and habits of thousands, probably millions.
John Wooden was reaching the apex of his coaching career during my years at UCLA. Years after his retirement I was privileged to hear him speak on his “Pyramid of Success” at several different Realtor meetings. I cherish an autographed copy. He stayed and graciously signed autographs and chatted as long as his handlers allowed at every event of his I attended. The ultimate gentleman. The ultimate husband. The ultimate mentor. The ultimate coach.
When my family can’t figure out what to give me, they dig up a book by or about John Wooden. Many a night Nate’s bedtime story was a chapter from one of Wooden’s books.
Over this weekend, and during the week ahead, there will be numerous articles about Wooden in print and on radio and TV.
I encourage you to tape, watch, read, and clip as many as you can.
Here’s a little taste of Coach’s wisdom:
The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.
It isn’t what you do, but how you do it.
You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.
Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.
You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.
There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer.
Thank you for being a mentor to a man you barely met.
I’m going to miss you, but by God’s grace I hope to see you again and Read more
Jun
3
Explanations and recommendations for California Propositions 13 – 17
Filed Under 2010 Issues | 2 Comments
(June 3, 2010, Los Alamitos) Today I finally went through my sample ballot and the Secretary of State’s Voter Information Guide, and boy are there a lot of candidates and issues I just don’t know that much about.
After a couple of hours of reading, I know more than I did, so here are my “Cliff’s notes” on some of the propositions. I hope to get posts up on candidates later.
We’ve got a fairly diverse and well informed group of readers, and, frankly, my hope is that you can share areas of your expertise, correct some of the issues where I’m in error, and otherwise add to and improve what I’ve found out.
The biggest deceivers
As usual, there’s an awful lot of distortions and misinformation out there. Most of the ads, whether by mail, radio, TV, or robo-calling are best ignored unless they’re from a group you believe in and support. One of the greatest deceptions out there is Read more
Jun
2
Your trash day is one day late this week
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
"Lowest unqualified bidder?"
(6/2/2010, Los Alamitos) If you live in Los Alamitos, and were thinking about putting the trash out tonight (Wednesday), you’ll be happy to know that’s one task you can put off until tomorrow.
With the holiday on Monday, trash pick up in Los Alamitos, as well as most surrounding areas, is one day later this week, as is normal practice with Consolidated Disposal and most other firms, on major holidays.
If my memory serves correctly, which it still does sometimes, that also means no street sweeping or tickets this week if your street sweeping day is the day after your trash day.
Based on search engine terms that have sent people to this site in the last few days, I know some people were wondering about that, so I decided to answer that unasked question.
You’re welcome.
(If you wish to comment, click here: Read more