Interesting juxtaposition of articles in today's San Gabriel Valley Tribune.  Prominently displayed on p. A3, with a big photo:  "Need a job?  Try Wal-Mart."  Hidden away on p. A13?  "Wal-Mart shooting suspects in custody."  The former article was available on the on-line version of the paper.  The latter was not.  How's that for media bias?

In case you've come to our site by accident, you may not know what SOC is all about.

The people who call themselves Save Our Community are volunteer citizens from Rosemead, South San Gabriel, and surrounding communities.  The group was originally organized to unify Rosemead and South San Gabriel residents in their battle against the Wal-Mart supercenter proposed for the corner of Rush St. and Delta Ave. in Rosemead.

At the last city council meeting, several of our members did a great job of raising questions about Rosemead's handling of "A Mighty Wind," which is discussed below.

One interesting comment from last week's city council meeting was from Mayor Gary Taylor.  He said that "it was obvious" that the fence lacked proper anchoring.  Which, of course, begs the question:  If he, in his professional judgement as a building contractor, saw that the fence was unsafe, then why didn't he, in his role as a Rosemead city council member, take action to make sure those fences wouldn't blow down?

A few weeks ago, our neighbors to the north attempted to turn in petitions seeking to referendum to put the ordinances that permitted the Piazza Las Tunas development to a vote.  The Temple City Neighborhood Alliance opposes this development because they believe it will bring excessive traffic to an already-impacted corner, and change the character of their city.  Ironically, in the EIR regarding the project, the developer could use the "F" rating for traffic at this intersection to his advantage.  An "F" is as low as you can go, so adding additional car trips to an intersection that is already "F" is "not a significant impact."

Pasadena Star-News, Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Curfew ignored

What does it take to get Wal-Mart to abide by its contractual agreement for the building of a supercenter?

Wal-Mart's violations of the conditions imposed by the city of Rosemead and agreed to by Wal-Mart are numerous and egregious and have been amply documented by neighborhood residents.

As an example, Wal-Mart's construction activities are supposed to stop at 8p.m. Yet from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. the other night, Wal-Mart's employees refused to stop the deafening roar caused by the workers breaking up cement.

Congratulations to local power couple Judy Chu and Mike Eng!

Mike Eng cruised to a landslide victory in the race for the Democratic nomination for the 49th Assembly District.  With 100% of the precincts reporting, Eng captured 9,696 votes, or 52.1% of the total votes cast in a three-way race for his party's nomination.  His nearest competitor finished nearly 3,000 votes behind him.

On Friday, May 26, it was announced that Judge Klausner had lifted the preliminary restraining order against our recall election.  I haven't yet read his full decision (I don't even know if he issued a written decision).  So our much-anticipated election is probably going to be back on.  The story in Saturday's San Gabriel Valley Tribune is linked below:

http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_3871783

Still no news on the Imperial v. Castruita litigation.  It's a little perplexing why Judge Klausner hasn't lifted his preliminary restraining order against our recall election.  With Padilla v. Lever removed as precedent, there is very little reason to expect that Imperial's lawsuit will prevail on the merits.  And with that, the preliminary restraining order should be lifted.

You'll recall that Imperial v. Castruita is the case in which Councilman Jay Imperial sued his own city to prevent the February 7 recall election from going forward.  In response to that suit, Judge Klausner issued a preliminary restraining order against our election.  But it's now been about three weeks since the city of Rosemead asked for "clarification" on the Imperial v. Castruita litigation in light of the Ninth Circuit Court's decision to withdraw the original three-judge panel's decision and grant an en banc rehearing in Padilla v. Lever.