For years, the city, the Rose parade staff and others have pushed figures of 1 million people showing up to the Rose Parade (or near that). Many years ago, this newspaper presented a mathematical analysis that cast doubt on that figure. I think we ought to republish it, since the figure is still being pushed. Since I was just a wee child when this figure was first debunked, I am deferring to Larry Wilson to explain the details. This writing is from his comments on an LAObserved post about the 2003 parade:

Sorry to have to set everyone straight here, but such is the lot of the editor of the Pasadena Star-News: me. A) Irreverent or not, it was not an L.A. Times science writer pressed into parade duty -- having been a Times copy boy, that is not a remotely possible real-life situation, by the way -- who noted the impossibility of 1 million people at the Rose Parade. It was a Pasadena Star-News reporter, John Fleck, who in the late 1980s roped my stepfather, Al Hibbs, a Caltech/JPL mathematician and physicist, into doing the very simple arithmetic that proves that really no more than 400,000 people can fit along the parade route. (I was the editorial-page editor at the time and had nothing to do with the actual assignment.) Perhaps the source of the myth about the Times is that Al's casual theory that there was no way 1 million people attend the parade was first mentioned in his friend Jack Smith's column in the Times. But when John pressed Al to actually produce the math for a front-page story in the Star-News, they collaborated, adding up all the people who buy tickets in the grandstands, then giving a VERY generous allowance of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder 10 deep along both sides of the 5.5 mile route, then adding in an even more generous extra 100,000 people who might be watching from office buildings etc. along Colorado Boulevard to get to the 500,000 spectators figure. Silly as it is, disproved as it is, the Tournament of Roses still uses the 1 million estimate in its press releases for this coming year's parade. There is no ''party line'' about a million coming to the area: the press release, citing ''law enforcement estimates,'' says 1 million attend the parade itself. The Pasadena Police Department says it has no such estimater; all the same, its spokesman last year came up with the ludicrously detailed figure of 952,000 attendees when our reporter asked for a crowd count last Jan. 1 for our annual Rose Parade special edition, published this and every year on Jan. 2. As to the post that there used to be editors at the Pasadena Star-News who also disputed the figure, well, this is to show that the editor still very much disputes it, as recently as my column of this past Sunday, Dec. 14. You could look it up: www.pasadenastarnews.com. All best wishes, Larry Wilson, editor, Pasadena Star-News

State controller John Chiang apparently suffered chest pains on Fridays while visiting family. Of course, we don't know the cause, but I imagine trying to account for and disburse funds in a state with California's budget woes is a pretty stressful job. From Chiang's office:

To Interested Reporters,

Deputy Controller, Communications

Here is hoping the best for Chiang's health- he has shown himself to be very resolute and honest about the state's befuddling budget process over the last few months.

A large-scale version of Honda's ASIMO robot will be in next week's Rose Bowl Parade. It will be wearing a giant top hat and will tip its hat to parade spectators. From Honda:

Today Honda tested its unique Rose Parade float as part of a rehearsal of the parade's opening show, conducted for media and invited guests in Pasadena, Calif., revealing the float design and giving parade fans a glimpse of this year's event. Honda's Rose Parade float, a 49-foot replica of Honda's ASIMO humanoid robot, and the parade's first-ever hydrogen-powered fuel cell pace car, the Honda FCX Clarity, will lead the 120th Rose Parade as well as kick off Honda's 50th anniversary of U.S. operations.

Pasadena spokeswoman Ann Erdman warned smokers on her blog that the city intends to begin enforcing city's new smoking ordinance for real at the Rose Parade:

Fair warning to smokers who light up along the parade route on New Year's Day: You'll be asked by a police officer to either put it out or go a block or so away from the route to enjoy your cigarette, pipe or cigar. The fine for ignoring the officer: $100 for the first violation (it goes up from there)

The ban has in place since October, but the city always planned to take a little longer to actually start enforcing it, taking time to put up signs and get people used to the new law.

Judy Chu, the former assemblywoman from Monterey Park (2001-2006) and current Board of Equalization member intends to run for Hilda Solis's soon-to-be vacant seat in Congress.

Gloria Romero has already announed her intention to run, and Ed Hernandez also has said he has interest. I believe Gil Cedillo has either said he plans to run, or has said he has interest. Both the Calderon brothers may also be interested.

Perhaps the key point here is that it is a lousy time to work in state government, but an exciting time for a Democrat in Congress.

Chu has fronted a number of interesting tax ideas in her time at the Board of Equalization, and came out strong against an execrable tax break that was inserted into the $700 billion bailout.

As reported in today's state deficit story Pasadena has some projects at stake if the state can't make a deal to close its massive deficit.

Among them are several housing development projects which are not clearly described in the report- is is about $2.2 million worth of funding that would be held up. I am working on getting city info on what the projects are.

The other program I recognized: a traffic synchronization project that I wrote about last summer: it would synchronize traffic lights on the following streets to make it so drivers don't always get caught up in several lights in a row: Fair Oaks, Hill, Del Mar, California, Orange Grove, Los Robles, Sierra Madre, and San Gabriel.

I am really rooting for the Sierra Madre and San Gabriel projects to get done fast- I live in the area and it is agonizing to be stopped at three or four lights in a row only to see 1 or 2 cars pass by in a minute.

A Sacramento source has sent down a plan that legislators are expected to vote on tonight. Basically it increases cuts some taxes, raises other taxes, and takes on more long-term revenue in return for more short-term revenue. The idea is to get the state to be solvent enough to borrow again so that the state does not become insolvent in February. Desperate times, desperate measures, etc. etc.

The questionable part for me though, is that Democrats plan to pass this plan without Republican support, claiming they don't need 2/3 support because in the long run, there is not a net increase in taxes. That might be true- this plan is pretty complicated to read- but I can certainly decipher that the legislature is planning a gas "fee" that will ultimately, even after some other gas taxes are reduced, lead to consumers paying an extra 13 cents per gallon at the pump. How can that be legal without a 2/3 vote? I'm waiting on the answer for that.

UPDATE: Capitol Alert, the Sacramento Bee's blog seems to have about the same information I do in terms of the gas fee legality:

In a single bill, Democrats will eliminate the sales and excise taxes on gasoline and replace those taxes with higher income taxes, sales tax and an oil severance tax.

In other words, it is legal because we say it is legal. It sounds like this issue may end up being resolved in a court, if it passes through the governor, that is.

Btw, Capitol Alert has an extremely extensive breakdown on all the taxes and cuts and is well worth looking at.

In today's article on Pasadena's deficit problems I mention a list of projects that city officials have in mind for the city in the long run. It's a long list, and a lot of money, but as mentioned in the article, the city hopes to pay for most of it with grants. Another possibility for the city is trying to get money in the stimulus package that President-elect Obama has promised early next year- Pasadena does have a contract with a D.C. lobbyist for exactly this reason.

Below is the list:

UPDATE: An easier to view list can be found here on page 7 of the city staff report

The latest hi jinx from the capitol, via Capitol Alert:

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass announced Tuesday that her house would vote late this afternoon on a $19 billion package of cuts and new taxes to chip away at the nearly $40 billion deficit California faces over the next year and a half.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer has said he will stop funding infrastructure projects in the state beginning as early as Wednesday to conserve cash. The state faces potential insolvency in February if no new revenues or spending cuts are adopted, fiscal officials say.

I've heard from a city source that the contract for the long-controversial Heritage Square project is set to expire this week. The developer, Retirement Housing Foundation, won a city contract last year, but has not gotten any of the development through even the initial housing stages- the changing housing economy likely played a part in that.

The city may yet renegotiate a new term with RHF, but a lot of members of the community around the proposed project want a whole new bidding process for the project, which they clearly expressed to city staff at a community meeting last month. That, and the fact that the project does not like as profitable in the current housing climate, could mean this project goes back to the drawing board.

During the budget process over the last six months (including the time since the budget has passed where everyone has acknowledged that it was a totally useless attempt at passing a budget) Republican legislators have been saying there should be spending cuts, rather than new taxes. However, they have never come out and released a clear list of cuts that shows how to get the budget balanced. Until now. The full list of $15.6 billion in cuts can be found on Capitol Alert. There would also be $6 billion in cuts in children health and mental health programs, but they would require voter approval since they are in programs that voters have approved to receive a designated amount of funding.

The real meat of the cuts comes in education ($10.6 billion), transit programs ($459 million), and welfare programs ($913 million). The education cuts involve a 10 percent across-the-board reduction for California university programs. There are also Medi-Cal cuts.

It's either that are various Democratic or Gov. Schwarzenegger proposals, which would raise either the sales tax, or income taxes for California's wealthy.

At least now voters have a competing vision for where they would like the state to go. Too bad that few people are paying attention, and most districts are hopelessly gerrymandered.

A late meeting preview today.... my apologies. First, the bad news.

The city has some economic downturn-related bad financial news to deal with. Because the pension fund for the city's fire and police departments is not as strong as in previous years, the city is required by a 1999 agreement to cover a cash shortage to the fund with a direct contribution of nearly $1 million. I imagine that was a provision that the city thought it unlikely would ever come back to hurt them- as long as the stock market is growing, most pension funds are growing. Right now, however, the pension fund is hurting: city staff estimated its value on November 30 at around $84 million, compared to about $122 million in June. Harsh.

There are a couple of interesting long-term informational items on tonight's meeting, with no immediate consequences. First, the city is reporting on a requested informational item on the benefits of artificial turf. If I recall correctly, Sid Tyler made this request during a discussion of the local/county/state water crisis. The benefits it seems, are first with water savings, but also a financial savings of $44,000 per year on average per three-acre park for maintenance savings. Of course, converting to turf would require an upfront cost. The report also estimates artificial turf can support an additional 25 hours of use weekly. The city is currently working on bidding a contract for a turf field at Robinson Park, which will be redone this spring.

The next item is for a $26 million city ice rink. The city wants to make space in the Pasadena Convention Center where there is currently a rink, and is interested in building a stand-alone facility next to the Vina Vieja park in eastern Pasdaena. I believe the new information here is the cost estimate.

Finally, the city is looking at a $18.5 million contract for new infrastructure at the Pasadena Water and Power facilities. I don't know if this is particularly significant, but at $18.5 million, the contract is enormous.

Here is a random late Friday thought to cap off the week. With the constant grind here in California of wondering if we'll wake up next week with the state no longer funding schools, or maintaining the roads, why does Bogota, Columbia have the best bike paths in the world? From Wikipedia:

Bogotá's bike paths network or ciclorruta in Spanish, designed and built during the administration of Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, is also one of the most extensive in the world.

Since the construction of the ciclorutas, bicycle use has increased by 5 times in the city, and it is estimated that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 trips made daily in Bogotá by bicycle. A large portion of this use is in southern, poorer areas.

I suspect the last sentence must be the key- people who can't afford to buy a car ride a bike. Or take a bus. So governments are more responsive to the demands of transit/bike riders.

Witness, Thailand for example, and its extensive Skytrain elevated monorail system.

I'd like to see more people get out of their cars here and demand more bike paths, because frankly, riding a bike to work is much better than driving. I ride in to work at least three times a week, and every time I get back behind the wheel of my car I come closer to having a road rage breakdown at every single one of Pasadena's ubiquitous red lights. Every time I am stuck behind two cars each driving 20 mph on a 40 mph street. Every time I get cut off. Etc., etc.

Maybe I'll move to Bogota.

Now that the county transit agency has gotten the OK to spend the $210 million in federal funding that it received in return for trying out a toll lane pilot project (see story here for more details) it is time to take a look at their spending plan, which was approved by the MTA board in September. It also includes $80 million in Prop 1B funds that are the local matching funds for the project. A lot of the spending is either directly on the toll lanes, or on 57 new buses that are going to run along the toll lanes. The $80 million "Union Division" project is a bus facility to house the new buses.

However, there are a few other things including a $55 million El Monte Transit Center expansion, that includes bike lockers, and $15 million for a Los Angeles city parking management program.

The full list is reproduced below.

According to our story today, La Canada Flintridge is "thinning out" its peacock population. Before anyone gets too upset about that, it turns out that they are not planning to shot the birds on sight, but rather trap them and take them somewhere else. The city estimates they have 40, and have decided to cut the population to 14.

My question, though, is where do they go? You can't release them into the "wild." Does this mean they are just going to dump them on some unsuspecting animal sanctuary? Or maybe drive them into Arcadia in the middle of the night and leave them with that flock. They may be a little more appreciated there- the signs in that neighborhood actually advertises their local peacock herd, which I do enjoy gawking at when I bike by.

I'm not sure I would want to live near them though:

"They are loud. They disrupt our sleep. They leave their fecal matter all over our yard," resident Lisa Phelan, 42, said of the mother peahen and her flock that took up residence in her yard last year.

She and other residents have complained to city officials that the handsome birds squawk loudly, attack cars and use patios and yards as restrooms.

I just spoke with Congressman David Dreier and he tells me that Senate Republicans expect they will be able to kill the $14 billion auto bailout plan passed by the House. Republicans have been pushing for more concessions from the industry's unions (meaning more job or wage cuts), and believe that going through bankruptcy court would allow for the kinds of changes they are looking for, without costing taxpayer money. Read more here.

Locally, the legislation has a lot of significance for the county MTA- House legislators slipped provisions into the bill that will help guarantee deals that MTA (along with many other transit agencies) made with multiple corporations earlier this decade, where MTA sold of its buses and trains and agree to lease them back over the years. Those deals gave MTA more money up-front, while giving corporate institutions long-term tax breaks on depreciation of the equipment.

The deals were insured by failing-insurer AIG. Right now, MTA is at the risk of having to pay back $165 million to creditors, unless the federal government agrees to assume the risk of the deals (for the back story on this, read here)

Those provisions may add to the difficulty in getting the bill passed. Sen. Max Baucus, is opposing the measure as long as the transit provisions are there (quite possibly, because Montana does not have any public transportation). More on Baucus' issue with the provisions here.

With Republicans opposing the Senate bailout, the Democrats will need every vote they can get, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the transit provisions dropped. Or for the entire bill to fail with or without the transit provisions, as Dreier predicts.

Last night's decision by the City Planning Commission not to approve the All Saint's church plan for a modern glass building that people say would clash with the current downtown architecture, highlights what appears to me to be an increasing divide between city staff and the commission (Janette Williams wrote about the meeting here- she also told me that people got quite heated at the meeting last night, which ran past midnight.)

Besides opposing the city's recommendation in this issue, the Planning Commission also made some majorly different recommendation on the city's Housing Element, which asked the city to move up consideration of several housing issues, including modifying the ordinance on allowing second units in Pasadena property. The commission wanted that considered at a council meeting by March, whereas the city staff recommended setting the deadline for next March.

The commission also unanimously rejected a zoning change in the North Los Robles Blvd. neighborhood that would have allowed increased density in the area. Staff had recommended the change to settle a lawsuit (much more on that here).

The City Council ends up caught in the middle of these varying recommendations- in the Housing Element case, they asked city staff to bring back a timetable it felt was realistic that could hopefully could lead to ordinance changes being debated sometime before next December.

In the North Los Robles case, City Council appeared to be leaning towards settling the lawsuit until Margaret McAustin abruptly decided to vote against the change, even though it meant the city will likely have to go to trial in a lawsuit brought by a local developer. McAustin was on the Planning Commission when it originally took up a related zoning change in 2006. Based on my conversations with council members before and after the zoning change vote, I believe most expected the settlement to go forward, and were surprised that McAustin changed her vote, and probably not particularly happy about it either.

Expect things to get interesting in the contest for Sid Tyler's seat as well- one of the candidates, Terry Tornek is on the Planning Commission, and a pretty outspoken slow-growth advocate. According to Janette, he was pretty active in last night's meeting, speaking out against the All Saint's project.

While nobody in the City Council can be labeled as a big advocate of increased density and development in the city, Tornek is markedly more active as an opponent of those things. If he were on council, it could mean a slight shift in how the city looks at development- McAustin could be a natural ally for him there. Some of the other council candidates, including Ciran Hadijan, John Walsh, and Margaret York have also talked about the need for slow-growth policies, though unlike Tornek, none have been in a commission position where they have pretty clearly shown how their voting records would differ from the current council's.

Seriously. This Saturday a bunch of people who dress up as zombies for fun and wander around the streets of Los Angeles County cities will show up to Pasadena Saturday night along Colorado Blvd.

And better yet, they will actually be bringing toy donations for the Toy for Tots organization. They are philanthropic zombies!

Also, they will have a Santa zombie and zombie elves. I wonder if the Santa zombie will be handing out any gifts to the children..... or just feasting on their delicious, delicious brains.

My hat goes off to this group for making life interesting. You can read more here or go to join the ranks of the undead.

Just received via email:

We are thrilled to announce the new date of the of the Pasadena Marathon--March 22, 2009! We hope you agree that this date occupies a prime spot on the nation's race calendar, and that you'll do us the honor of participating!

Please feel free to pass this on to your friends in the running, walking, cycling community, and encourage them to sign up for our e-Newsletter at www.pasadenamarathon.org.

I like the part about deep discounts for people who already paid for the canceled marathon.

From a press release:

Please be advised that Warner Brothers Television will be filming scenes for "Cold Case" at City Hall on Friday 12/12/08 between the hours of 7am and 6pm.

Thank you in advance for your support of filming in Pasadena and the vital revenue it provides to the City .

The story in today's paper by reporters Caroline An and Nathan McIntire answers the question of why the county would not file fraud charges based on PUSD's insistence that it was ripped off by contractors it paid to do work with Measure Y bond money. There are no charges, simply because the evidence was based on the word of a contractor who later recanted his testimony (as discussed in a previous story, records of the bond expenditures were so spotty that there was little else to go on).

The contractor in question, Jesse Yzaguirre of La Crescenta, intially said he had paid off a district construction officials:

In that interview [with investigator Michael Ammermon] , Yzaguirre said that he paid former PUSD assistant construction coordinator Mark Kingsbury between $500 and $3,500 in hundred-dollar bills for each project Kingsbury awarded him.

Here's hoping PUSD does a better job keeping track of its expenditures this time around with the newly-approved bond measure. At the very least, it is encouraging that they pursued these fraud cases even though the investigation didn't make their past oversight look too good. Still, we would have all appreciated it at the paper if they had just come out and been open with all this information when we initially learned about the investigation- ultimately, we got the story anyway.

Also, as a last note, the PUSD is still trying to get the county DA to reopen the investigation.