COMPLIMENTARY COPY
MONROVIAWEEKLY.com
Thursday, November 16, 2017 - November 22, 2017
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MONROVIAWEEKLY
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Since 1996
Volume 20, No. 46
Historic Santa Fe Depot Renovation Slated for Completion by End of December Terry MILLER tmiller@beaconmedianews.com
O
ver the past year, the City of Monrovia has been working to carefully repair the historic Santa Fe Depot, which is planned to be utilized as a café / restaurant once it is fully restored. Community Development and Public Services staff have been coordinating construction activities at the site. The major structural work is complete, and crews are now working to finish the installation of the windows, rain gutters, and completing minor touch ups. At that point, the site will be ready for the operator to come in to complete the interior tenant improvements.
The depot reuses the former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway depot, built 1926 in a
The once almost forgotten and vandalized Santa Fe Depot has undergone a major renovation over the past year thanks to a historic preservation grant that was nearly overlooked a while back. - Photos by Terry Miller/Beacon Media News
THE MONROVIA OLD TOWN REPORT Pam FITZPATRICK pamfitz2@gmail.com
I’m not sure where to start this week, so much is happening! Let’s start with food, specifically donuts and spaghetti. Stay with me here, this will get better. The Donut Society opened Tuesday morning, Nov. 14. There must be a lot of starving folks in and around Monrovia, because the place was packed most
LOCAL NEWS
of the day. After running some errands, I stopped in to say “hi” to the owners (and do a little tastetesting). The line went fairly fast, but the decision-making was the timekiller. The end result was absolutely delicious! Then, on my way back to my car, as I passed by Sunday’s Old Town Bistro, I remembered the spa-
Eastbound I-210 Ramp Closure
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ghetti they served during this year’s Wine Walk – the spaghetti that I didn’t get to taste. Of course, I had to stop for a sample to take back to my office, and that too was amazing. I just love this town… Because of the food, the shops the events – because of the people, Old
SEE OLD TOWN PAGE 12
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT King Charles III… Back to the Future
Spanish colonial-revival style. The 1926 station replaced a wooden depot built on the site in 1886 by the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad used until 1972. Installed in 1887, a mule-drawn railway, a single passenger car, called the Myrtle Avenue Railroad at that time ran from the Monrovia station up Myrtle Ave to downtown Monrovia. On the way back down to the rail station, the mule was loaded onto a flatcar and downhill gravity took the cars back to the station. By the early 1920s the mule-streetcar system was removed. In 1906 the Pacific Electric rail car arrived in Monrovia. In 2018 Station Square will be a hub of new business activity with a new massive mixed use apartment complex adjacent to the Gold Line, a trend in all Gold Line cities.
City Council Approves Plan to Put City on Sound Financial Footing Staff Writer editorial@beaconmedianews.com
At the Monrovia City Council meeting on Nov. 7, the City Council approved a multilevered response plan to address looming pension costs related to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). In short, over the past five years, CalPERS has systematically imple-
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mented a series of significant rate adjustments which if left unaddressed, would strain the City’s General Fund to the point of rendering the Monrovia insolvent as early as Fiscal Year 2021/22. Over the course of several months and following considerable analysis and discussion, staff developed an overall CalPERS Response (CPR) Plan with various op-
tions to proactively address the dramatic annual increases in the City’s required UAL payments that will be instituted beginning July 1, 2018. The CPR Plan involves implementing five key strategies that aim to reduce expenditures and grow revenues, including: -Adoption of Side Letters of Agreement with all SEE FINANCE PAGE 13
HOLIDAY DINING
It’s time to Eat, drink and be Merry
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