burbankindependent.com
BE SURE TO VISIT: PASADENAROSEPARADE.COM
INDEPENDENT THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9 - OCTOBER 15, 2014
VOLUME 2, NO. 40
Tournament of Roses Selects 2015 Royal Court Queen will be announced October 21
The seven members of the 2015 Tournament of Roses Royal Court were announced Monday at Tournament House. Selected from a group of 31 finalists, the Royal Court will attend as many as 100 community and media functions, acting as ambassadors of the Tournament and the Pasadena community at large. Their reign will culminate with the 126th Rose Parade® presented by Honda and the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game® presented by Northwestern Mutual. The announcement follows a month-long process in which more than 700 Pasadena-area young women participated. The Tournament’s Queen and Court Committee made its selections based on a number of criteria including poise, speaking ability, academic achievement, and community and school involvement. The seven Royal Court members are (in alphabetical order): Mackenzie Joy Byers (#387), 18, Pasadena City College; Ga-
FREE
Burbank resident gets 12 years for sexual abuse Armando Murillo Avila, a 34-year-old horse caretaker, pleaded no contest on Tuesday to continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 in Alhambra. He was sentenced to 12 years for the crime. Avila’s victim was a 13-year-old relative of a woman he was dating, Alhambra police said. The girl’s relatives called police on Aug. 15. Prior to arrest, he was beaten up during a confrontation with male family members of the victim, according to police reports. Santiago said the abuse occurred between Feb. 1 and Aug. 15.
(From left to right) Emily Alicia Olivas Stoker (#276), 17, Temple City High School; Veronica Sara Mejia (#145), 19, Pasadena City College; Mackenzie Joy Byers (#387), 18, Pasadena City College; Gabrielle Ann Current (#85), 18, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy; Simona K. Shao (#253), 17, Westridge School; Madison Elaine Triplett (#608), 17, John Marshall Fundamental High School and Bergen Louise Onufer (#702), 17, Mayfield Senior School. -Courtesy Photo
brielle Ann Current (#85), 18, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy; Veronica Sara Mejia (#145); 19, Pasadena City College; Bergen Louise Onufer (#702), 17,
Mayfield Senior School; Simona K. Shao (#253), 17, Westridge School; Emily Alicia Olivas Stoker (#276), 17, Temple City High School; and Madison
Elaine Triplett (#608), 17, John Marshall Fundamental High School. “We are confident that the seven young women selected for the
2015 Royal Court will be outstanding ambassadors,” said Mark Leavens, chair of the Tournament of Roses Please see page 5
Bike Stolen in 1972, Destined to Australia is CALIFORNIA’S WATER OFFICIALS NEGLECT THEIR OWN LAWS AND WASTE WATER Intercepted at LA/LB Seaport U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Outbound Enforcement Team officers at the Los Angeles/ Long Beach (LA/LB) seaport, in partnership with California Highway Patrol (CHP) investigators and
National Insurance Crime Bureau special agent, intercepted a stolen 60 year-old 1954 FL Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide motorcycle, destined to Australia. CBP seized it on September 9 and turned it over to CHP
for further investigation and return to its rightful owner. The bike features a trumpet style horn and a 50 years medallion on its front fender, denoting HarleyDavidson’s 50th anniverPlease see page 6
BY JENNIFER SCHLUETER
California’s law makes water bills of state officials defining water rates and rules public record. Thus, The Center for Investigative Reporting examined their data and found the state’s representatives wasting up to eleven times as much water as the typical California household. Fresno City Councilman Oliver Baines is responsible for this number, using 4,000 gallons a day. After finding out that he had defective sprinklers using 1.24 million gallons of water in 2012, Baines now cut his usage to 149 gallons per day in March of this year. According to NBC, he apologized and admitted to not being “a model of water usage.”
Next to Baines’ wasting due to leaking sprinklers, Mike Soubirous, member of the Riverside City Council, was found to be the biggest water wasting official in the state. His desert home with a “1-acre lot with cascades of flowering shrubs and a weeping willow tree,” as NBC describes it, consumes enough water to serve eight households – more than 1 million gallons a year. Soubirous told NBC that he doesn’t know what to do to conserve water; “sell [his] house to set that example, or just abolish all [of his] shrubs?” In July, Riverside prohibited watering more than four days a week, which Subirous supported. However,
last month he was caught on video running his sprinklers seven consecutive nights. Furthermore, the CIR discovered that more than 50% water agency supervisors consume more water than the state’s average household. Randy Record, chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, for example, with more than 1,100 gallons per day in 2013, uses three times as much. While deciding on laws that save water and $500 fines for water wasters, water use among 60 percent of the officials has increased from 2012 to 2013. Please see page 4