Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 13, 2015

Mountain View News Saturday, June 13, 2015 

Walking Sierra Madre…The Social Side by Deanne Dav

SIERRA MADRE POLICE BLOTTER is 

During the week of Sunday, May 31st, to Sunday, June7th, the Sierra Madre Police Department responded toapproximately 339 calls for service. 

Sunday, May 31st

 At 12:00 pm, Sierra Madre Police responded to the 400 blockof West Sierra Madre Blvd regarding a small fire in the rearparking lot. Upon arrival Officers discovered a roasting panwithin a dumpster with burnt leaves and books. There wasnot active fire, but the odor of smoke remained in the area. 
Officers were met by several witnesses who stated they werein the area at the time and began to smell smoke shortlyafter seeing two women walk out from behind a dumpster.
Upon investigating, they discovered a roasting pan withsmoldering leaves and books. One witness attempted tostomp out the smoking remains, and feared it was gettingworse, so then placed it in the dumpster in an attemptto contain the fire. The fire department was called to thescene to ensure proper disposal and extinguishment. Thewitnesses described the two women leaving the area of thesmoke as female white, aged around 20 years, 5’5”, withone having an average build of 120 pounds and one with aheavy build of 150 pounds. This case has been forwarded tothe Detective Bureau. 

Tuesday, June 2nd

At 1:20 pm, Sierra Madre Police responded to the 700 blockof West Sierra Madre Blvd regarding a stolen vehicle report.
The victim informed Officers that he had parked his vehiclein his carport on Saturday, the 30th and returned Tuesdaymorning to discover his vehicle was missing. The man statedhe never gave anyone permission to take his vehicle, and hehad all four sets of keys in his possession. A dmv recordssearch showed the vehicle had not been impounded. Thiscase has been forwarded to the Detective Bureau. 

At 5:50 pm, Sierra Madre Police responded to the600 block of West Sierra Madre Blvd regarding a vehicletampering report. The victim informed Officers that hervehicle was parked in the carport the night before, and dueto a window malfunction, her passenger window is alwaysleft slightly open at about an inch. The following morning,
she discovered her vehicle’s window was now more than 
half way down, and appeared to have been forced down.
Her vehicle doors were unlocked, her items were ransacked, 
and her ignition switch was not in its normal position andappeared to be broken. Nothing appeared to be missingfrom the vehicle. This case has been forwarded to the 
Detective Bureau. 

Thursday, June 4th

At 11:30 am, Sierra Madre Police responded to the 300block of North Sunnyside regarding a tenant and landlorddispute. Upon arrival, Officers were informed by the femalethat her landlord, who was also her ex-boyfriend, had beentaking her items out of the house and putting them on thepatio. As he was doing so, she said he slipped and hit thedoor jam, which resulted in him receiving a cut to his arm.
When Officers questioned the man, he stated the womanintentionally tripped him causing him to get hurt. Officersdetermined the woman was the primary aggressor and wastaken into custody. This case has been forwarded to theDistrict Attorney’s Office for filing. 

Saturday, June 6th

At 1:00 pm, Sierra Madre Police responded to the 400 blockof East Laurel Ave regarding a residential burglary. The callwas placed by a humane society dispatcher after an employeeapproached the residence to conduct an animal check anddiscovered broken glass and was unsure if anyone stillremained inside. Officers arrived on scene and conducted 
an interior search of the residence and discovered the home 
had been ransacked. It was determined entry was madethrough breaking the kitchen glass door. The homeownerwas notified and later reported over $15,000 of lost property.
This case has been forwarded to the Detective Bureau. 

“The best feeling I ever had! It’s just an amazing feeling that you have 
when it’s 20 yards out of the wire and you’re three or four lengths in 
front.” Victor Espinoza 

Three times was definitely the charm last Saturday when Sierra 
Madre’s own Victor Espinoza rode American Pharoah to the first 
Triple Crown win in 37 years! Congratulations, Victor! We’re 
delighted for you and proud of you, too. In case you didn’t see it, 
a write-up on Victor by Rachel Cohen in last Sunday’s Star News 
Sports Section reported, “Espinoza will donate his winnings to City 
of Hope in Duarte....He’ll keep something much more valuable: a 
place in history.” We’re pretty sure Victor will be visiting the kids 
at C of H and passing out autographed pictures and t-shirts of his 
Triple Crown win, just as he did when he rode California Chrome 
to Kentucky Derby and Preakness victories last year. That’s really 
cool, isn’t it! 

Another great weekend here in town. Went to the Town Hall 
Meeting last Saturday. This was our opportunity to see what’s going 
on with the city’s General Fund expenditures and revenues and 
make suggestions on what could be done to reduce expenditures, 
enhance and increase revenues. The meeting was set up in six 
different stations to visit. We were handed a card when we arrived 
which was awarded a star when we 

completed each station. At the end we 
could put our card into drawing boxes for 
various nifty prizes like a meal with the 
mayor, a helicopter ride, dinner with the 
firefighters, five tickets to the Aquarium 
of the Pacific, a free park rental, yes, 
you have to pay to rent the park, like for 
the Art Fair, Library DVD rentals or a 
birthday party at the Library. I went for 
the Aquarium. 

We, like most of the rest of Sierra 
Madre don’t want to see Community 
Services, which includes events like Huck 
Finn Day, July 4th festivities, Concerts in 
the Park, Movie Nights, and Halloween, 
diminished. We love all these things. We 
want our Police and Fire Departments 
to continue being vigilant and on duty 
and we’d all be horrified if the Library 
was closed or cut back. My Town Hall 
Meeting companion, John, and I listened 
to all the City Employees who were 
giving out the facts and found ourselves 
reduced to silence when handed a sheet 
entitled “Balancing the Budget” and 
invited to fill out what department level 
cuts and at what amounts could be cut 
from the budget. We didn’t have much to 
offer as our City Council has done quite a 
lot of expenditure reduction already, and 
probably like you, we don’t want to give 
anything up. 

We did a little better at the next station 
where we had an opportunity to make 
suggestions for revenue enhancement. 
Here are my suggestions: We all need 
to try harder to shop right here in town. 
We have so many great restaurants and 
I intend to work harder to patronize 
them more instead of taking my dining 
out dollars over to Arcadia or Monrovia. 
Think about it! Sierra Brigante, Corfu, 
Only Place in Town, Beantown, 
Starbucks, Wistaria, Monsieur Crepe, 
Peppertree, Zugo’s, Mary’s Market, 
Lucky Baldwin’s, Casa del Rey, and more. 
We’ve got Taylor’s Meats and that great 
produce market right there, a splendid 
bakery: Poppy Seed Baking Co., countless 
hair and nail salons, including the new 
salon that’s part of the Kensington and 
open to everyone, not just Kensington 
residents. We’ve got exercise facilities 

galore; bicycle stores; Attitude! and Les Champs Elysees - apparel 
for both men and women, good gas prices and our own Playhouse! 
Let’s all try to stay in town more and raise our revenues! 

We’d like to see more filming going on around town, too. All 
those folks eat, shop and spend while they’re here. If you’d like to see 
the material that was available at the meeting, go to HYPERLINK 
“http://www.cityofsierramadre.com” www.cityofsierramadre.
com and click on Town Hall Budget Meeting Documents. Take 
a look and see what you can come up with to help our financial 
situation. You know, home is where the heart is and our hearts, like 
yours, are at home here in Sierra Madre. 

Sunday the 21st is Father’s Day. Get your Dad a card, take him 
out for lunch, phone him, and let him know you love him. You’ll be 
glad ya did! 

My book page: Amazon.com: Deanne Davis 
Blog: www.authordeanne.com 

“Tablespoon of Love, Tablespoon of Laughter” is available 
there… 

An excellent graduation or Father’s Day gift, by the way! 


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com