The South Pasadena Public Library will host at its Library Community room a free screening of "Ride The High Country," starring South Pasadenan Joel McCrea on Thursday, June 6, 2013.  The master of ceremonies for the will be acclaimed Cowboy Poet, Larry Maurice. Introducing the film will be McCrea's grandson, Wyatt McCrea. The Library Community Room is located at 1115 El Centro seat. No tickets or reservations are necessary. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. For more information, please visit http://www.southpasadenaca.gov/index.aspx?recordid=30&page=32.

The Parks and Recreation Commission sought community input and reviewed the area and design options at its May 13, 2013 meeting. The information gathered at this meeting will be compiled to create a draft rendering to be presented at the June 10, 2013 Commission meeting. The design of the park will be created by Sonia Nicholson, a South Pasadena resident and pro bono landscape architect for the park extension design. There is currently no funding for the construction of this park extension.    

 

The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the South Pasadena Council Chambers, located at 1424 Mission Street. For questions, please contact Sheila Pautsch, Community Services Director at (626) 403-7362 or spautsch@ci.south-pasadena.ca.us.

On Thursday, June 20, 2013 at 7:00 p.m., the extraordinary love affair between Chicago and its baseball Cubs will be celebrated with a screening of "We Believe" at the South Pasadena Public Library. It is a powerful, passionate, and uplifting feature-length film about America, family, faith, loyalty, and tradition. First and foremost, "We Believe" is an entertaining movie, jam-packed with humor, heart, emotion, and unique insight. It contains super-rare and never-before-seen vintage footage --including the earliest known film of a Cubs game from 1909. It also showcases footage of Chicago shot by Thomas Edison in 1897, the first color films shot at Wrigley Field in 1938, and dozens of rare and previously unseen photos from the earliest days of the Cubs.

"We Believe" presents Cubs legends Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg, Billy Williams, Kerry Wood, and others, along with interviews with longtime fans and experts, Bob Costas, Joe Mantegna, George Will, Billy Corgan, Dennis Franz, Scott Turow, and Bud Selig. Also appearing is Dutchie Caray, the wife of legendary announcer Harry Caray. The captivating feature is topped off by newly-shot images of Chicago and Wrigley Field, and an incredible soundtrack with songs by Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen.

The free event will also feature an introduction and Q and A by John Scheinfeld, who presented his award-winning documentaries, "Who Is Harry Nilsson" and "The U.S. vs. John Lennon" to enthusiastic full house audiences in the Library Community Room in 2010 and 2012. Writer/director Scheinfeld is one of the premier creators of popular culture documentaries." The GRAMMY® and EMMY® nominee has tackled many legends in his illustrious career including the likes of Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Nat King Cole, and now the Chicago Cubs, who have proven that bad luck streaks can indeed last more than a century.

The program is appropriate for all ages and co-sponsored by the South Pasadena Public Library, the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library, and the Baseball Reliquary. The Community Room is located at 1115 El Centro Street in South Pasadena. No tickets or reservations are necessary. Refreshments will be served. DVDs of "We Believe" will be available for purchase.

The City of South Pasadena will be hosting a FREE mulch and compost giveaway event on Saturday, June 22, 2013 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the School District parking lot, located at 1020 El Centro Street. South Pasadena residents are welcome to scoop up to a maximum of 1 yard of compost or mulch into their truck or car at no charge.

Residents must bring their own containers. The City will supply shovels.

Mulch vs. Compost:
Mulch is chipped tree trimmings or bark chips which serve as a protective cover for your soil. It reduces evaporation, reduces weeds and is an attractive addition to your landscape. Mulch should be laid 2 to 3 inches thick to be most effective. In a few years, mulch decomposes and helps add nutrients into your soil.

Compost consists of yard trimmings and/or food waste which breaks down to a fine dark matter over time. Compost should be added into the soil to provide essential nutrients to your plants via their roots.

The giveaway will be on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, visit the City's website or contact the Water Conservation Analyst at (626) 403-7311 or dfigoni@ci.south-pasadena.ca.us.

The Annual Golf Tournament, hosted by the South Pasadena Tournament of Roses, is scheduled for Saturday, June 22, 2013. Please visit http://www.sptor.com/Level2Pages/Golf.htm for more information.

The City of South Pasadena would like to thank its residents for their patience as the City transitioned utility billing to Global Water FATHOM™.  There are a few important items, now that the transition is complete:

 

Changes to Your Bill - Beginning in April 2013, residents will have received a newly-designed City of South Pasadena utility bill. Customers will continue to receive their utility bills at approximately the same time as they did before, on a bi-monthly schedule.

Changes to Your Payments - A new remittance address has been established to provide more efficient payment posting for payments received through the mail.  In addition, customers will receive a new customer number and account number as part of the new bill.  This means that as a Bill Pay customer, residents will need to update their account numbers and remittance addresses through their banks.  FlashPay customers need not re-enroll, as their current bank account information will be transferred over to the new system. City Hall will continue to accept walk-in payments as normal.

New Billing Enhancements for Additional Payment Options - The new utility bill will contain instructions on how to make payments through the City of South Pasadena's new online customer portal - U2You. Payments via credit card, debit card, or e-check are free of charge.  Customers may also pay in person, by mail, by telephone via the City of South Pasadena's Customer Care Center, with Bill Pay through one's personal bank account, or through Automated Clearing House (ACH), previously known as FlashPay.

Changes to Your Payment Center - If customers wish to continue paying their bills in person, they may do so at the City of South Pasadena City Hall, located at 1414 Mission Street, Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 

Online Account Management - Customers may manage their accounts online via the City of South Pasadena's U2You customer portal where they can access usage history, payment history, account information, bill reprints and online bill payments.  

 

More information on utility billing is available at the City's website. 

In 2009, the South Pasadena Public Library began working to digitize the historic photographs in its Local History Collection, making them accessible in a way that they never were before.  More than 1,300 photographs, including this 1909 photo of early settlers at Wynyate House, are now available online through the Local History Collection's Flickr page.  Images can be searched and shared by visiting http://www.flickr.com/photos/77906722@N06.  

 

Through the combined efforts of the Library and the Local History Digital Resources Project of the California Digital Library of the University of California, the first set of images, comprised of a few hundred photographs, were digitized and made available online.  Over the last few years, the Library's Local History Staff and Interns have worked to digitize more than 1000 additional photographs.  These images are now available on Flickr, with more being added all the time.  One of the great features of Flickr is the ability for users to leave comments and share knowledge in a user-friendly format.  Should you have additional information regarding any of the photos, or if you can help us identify people or places, please feel free to share your insights by writing a note in the photo comments. 

 

Many of the materials in the Local History Collection would not be available without the thoughtful donations of private individuals, including the majority of the photographs.  Should you have any materials that pertain to the City's history, images or otherwise, that you would like to be considered as new additions to the Library's Local History Collection, or for more information on the Flickr page or the Local History Collection, please contact Chelsea Nassif, Local History Librarian, at (626) 403-7359 or cnassif@ci.south-pasadena.ca.us.  

 

The digitization and online hosting of these images would not have been possible without the support of the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library or the Local History Digital Resources Project, which was funded in whole or in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.

If cooking fats, oils and grease are washed down the drain, they can stick to the insides of the pipes and lead to sewage back-ups at home, your business or in our City's sewer pipes.  The fats coagulate in the sewer pipes when it cools down and can restrict the flow of wastewater.  Restricted flow causes solid material in the pipe to accumulate, resulting in blockages (similar to our arteries). The end results of this harmful problem are sanitary sewer overflows, and no one wants untreated sewage backing up into buildings or streets!   

     

The City's grease control or Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG) program establishes regulations for the proper disposal of grease and other insoluble waste from food service establishments within the City.  Residents also need to do their part by keeping grease, and other items like diapers and feminine products out of our sewer system. The safest way to dispose of your grease is to pour it into a "repurposed" container (like a coffee can), seal it shut and place it in the garbage.  For more information, please contact the Public Works Department at (626) 403-7240.

In April 2013, the California State Library released its California Library Statistics 2012, the latest of its annual reports on library statistical performance measures, covering the previous fiscal year.The report covers the period of July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011, and 182 public library jurisdictions are profiled. Of these, there are 46 county libraries, 117 city, 12 district, and 6 joint powers authority public libraries. Out of the 182 library jurisdictions, South Pasadena Public Library is in the top 15 percent in California in per-capita checkouts, program attendance, and library visits.

 

South Pasadena Public Library, with its service area of a mere 3.44 square miles and a population of 25,693, enjoyed the very healthy number of 307,058 visitors during the 12-month stretch. This statistic averages out to approximately 875 visitors for every day that the Library is open, or more than 11.5 visits per year for every person in the City.  These are impressive figures, especially because the Library has no dedicated parking spaces of its own.  Fortunately, the Library is located in an area where many residents walk, ride bikes, and take public transportation. 

 

The Library's total annual circulation for all materials, such as books, magazines, DVDs and CDs, is also noteworthy, having exceeded 450,000 for the very first time in 2010-2011. This is the equivalent of more than 17 annual checkouts per capita. With its circulation at 452,945 items, checkouts rose 5 percent from 431,573 over the previous year. 

 

California Library Statistics 2012 also shows that the South Pasadena Library has 33,862 registered borrowers, 8,000 more cardholders than South Pasadena has residents. This figure is a clear indicator of its patrons' interests in reading, music, films, cultural events, and lifelong learning. This statistic is especially significant, given that the neighboring communities of Alhambra, Monterey Park, and San Marino all have new, very sizeable library buildings, and that the Pasadena Public Library has 10 facilities.

 

During 2010-2011, South Pasadena presented 425 programs that drew audiences totaling more than 20,000.  The vast majority of the programs were for children, while others were offered for adults or for audiences of all ages. For more information, please visit the City's website.

 

The new bronze doorplate purchased by the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library was unveiled, as was a framed reproduction of a painting of the Bradbury by Zofia Kostyrko, an Altadena-based artist. Bradbury had a very close relationship with South Pasadena, which he said reminded him of his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois which, like South Pasadena, also possessed a Carnegie Library. The relationship began when a long, successful string of Ray's plays was first presented by his theatrical company at the Fremont Centre Theatre. Bradbury also appeared for two Library Author Nights for the South Pasadena Public Library, including one for his 90th birthday, and later autographed books, bottles of dandelion wine and movie posters for Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library fundraisers. In 2010, Bradbury spent a couple of hours in the conference room that now bears his name, although he never set foot on the asteroid, the lunar landing strip, or some of the other locations that have been posthumously named after him. The City of South Pasadena declared an official "Ray Bradbury Day in South Pasadena" in both 2008 and 2010.  Special thanks for support are due to the Bradbury Family, Maple River Winery, and Mission Framing. For more information, please visit the City website.  

South Pasadena residents are allowed to trim their oak trees only from July through October.  In order to trim an oak tree, residents must complete a permit form, which can be picked up at City Hall or downloaded from the City's website.  Before trimming is allowed, the City Arborist will examine the tree to evaluate how much can be trimmed while still keeping the tree healthy.  A similar process is applicable for oak tree removal in the City.

 

South Pasadena is proud to be a Tree City USA member.  Healthy trees are important to the City because they clean the air, provide oxygen, cool the streets, provide shade thereby conserving energy, provide homes for wildlife like birds, help prevent soil erosion and water pollution, and beautify the community.

 

For more information on trimming trees, visit the City's website at: http://www.southpasadenaca.gov/trees.

Music is in the air this summer at Garfield Park as the City of South Pasadena holds its annual Summer Concerts in the Park series. All of these family fun concerts will be held on select Sundays from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., starting July 7, 2013. The series will kick off with classic rock music performed by a South Pasadena favorite, The Answer,  on July 7, 2013.  Get your dancing shoes on as Suave the Band takes the stage on July 14, 2013, guaranteed to delight the audience with their Latin music. People will be on their feet for the upbeat swing music of the Phat Cat Swinger on July 21, 2013.  Sit back and enjoy all the Motown music as Stone Soul performs on July 28, 2013. The concert series will close with lively and thoroughly-enjoyable  country music performed by the always-popular Riders of the Purple Sage.

 

Mark your calendar and join us at Garfield Park on the following Sundays:    

July 7, 2013         The Answer  (Classic Rock )

July 14, 2013       Suave the Band (Latin)

July 21, 2013       Phat Cat Swinger (Swing)

July 28, 2013       Stone Soul (Motown)

August 4, 2013    Riders of the Purple Sage (Country)

 

Bring your blankets, beach chairs and picnic dinner and enjoy all the music and fun. There will also be a variety of delicious food available for purchase from local organizations. For more information, please call the Community Services Department at (626) 403-7380.

The City's biennial election will take place on Tuesday, November 5, 2013, in conjunction with the election being held with the South Pasadena Unified School District. The City and School District consolidate with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (LACRR/CC) to oversee the election.

 

Two City Council terms are expiring: that of Councilmember Michael A. Cacciotti and that of Councilmember Philip C. Putnam. The position of City Treasurer is also open and is currently held by Gary E. Pia, who was elected in 2011 to fill the unexpired term created when Victor A. Robinette resigned during his term. The position of City Clerk, currently held by Sally Kilby, was recently reconfigured to be a part-time, stipend-compensated position, is also open. All terms are for four years.

 

To qualify as a candidate for all City positions, a resident must be a registered voter in South Pasadena, a United States citizen, and 18 years of age. The candidate nomination period for all City positions is July 15, 2013 to August 9, 2013. If an incumbent does not file by August 9, 2013, nonincumbents have until August 14, 2013, to file. There is a $25 filing fee, and a charge to print the candidate's statement in the Official Sample Ballot booklet. A calendar of events for the upcoming election is available from the LACRR/CC at www.lavote.net (Local and Municipal Consolidated Elections-November 5, 2013).

 

Potential candidates are invited by the City Clerk to review a comprehensive notebook containing such documents as nomination papers, campaign committee forms and filing deadlines, checklists, information about financial disclosures, sample candidates' statements, and sample duties and responsibilities of open positions. This notebook will be provided to all those planning to file.

 

Prior to any campaign solicitation or financial contributions, a candidate must file a Form 501 (Fair Political Practices Commission) with the City Clerk. For further information or to make an appointment to discuss the candidate nomination process, contact the City Clerk at (626) 403-7232.