Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, January 30, 2021

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Mountain Views-News Saturday, January 30, 2021 

WALKING SIERRA MADRE - The Social Side 

by Deanne Davis

 
FEBRUARY 12TH LIBRARY 

VIRTUAL WINE AND CUISINE 
TASTING BENEFIT 

Don’t miss the Virtual Wine and Cuisine Tasting benefit on Friday, February 12, 2021 from 
6:00 to 7:15 PM. The benefit will be hosted by Jeff Champion of Rae’s Place Fine Wine Boutique. 
Rae’s Place is owned and run by the Champion Family: Kate, Raegan (Rae) and Jeff. 
Jeff is native to the San Gabriel Valley. Kate is local, having grown up in Monrovia. Jeff is a 
certified wine expert who brings people together to appreciate the art and science of wine. 
Jeff has arranged a special appearance for you by Lisa and Michael from Sweetzer Cellars 
Wineries.

Inspired by a summer trip to France in 2008, Lisa and Michal began making wine in a 
second story apartment in West Hollywood. “We crushed in the carport, fermented in the 
dining room, and pressed in the kitchen. The bedroom, kept at 60 degrees, served as our cellar.” 
Plan to attend the Library Virtual Wine Tasting to learn more about Lisa and Michael’s 
journey in becoming highly successful California wine makers. 

Whether you are thinking about romance, bromance or a virtual get-together with your best 
gal pals, this is for you!

Tickets are now on sale online at sierramadrelibraryfriends.org. Registration is a 3-step process. 
The $25 registration fee to Friends of Sierra Madre Library, plus price of wines and/
or Appetizer Selections from local Sierra Madre restaurant. To be more specific, after you 
have paid the registration fee on the Friends of Sierra Madre Library, you will be directed 
to Rae’s Place Fine Wine Boutique so you can purchase your wine. Once you purchase your 
wine, you will be provided recipes you can prepare at home that pair with the wines, or directed 
to a local Sierra Madre restaurant where you can pre-order appetizer selections that 
will pair with your wines. Your wine will be delivered to your home a day or two before the 
virtual wine tasting.

The proceeds of this event help support the Library’s programs for children and adults 
throughout the year. For more information about the event or Friends of the Sierra Madre 
Library visit our website at www.sierramadrelibraryfriends.org.


“A feeling of progress is an exhilarating high. The 
actual length of the stride forward isn’t the point. 
That it’s forward at all – that’s a gift wrapped in 
the shiny paper of HOPE!”

“The new dawn blooms as we free it for there is 
always light,

If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re 
brave enough to be it.”

Above are the last lines of Youth Poet 
Laureate, Amanda Gorman’s, inaugural 
poem. I have been so taken with the vision 
this young girl proposed at the inauguration. 
I’m sure you have been, too.

The picture this week just shouts hope. My 
great-granddaughters, Addison Noel who is 
2 and Charlotte Olivia who is 4 months old. 
They are smiling and sharing secrets. These 
girls will be brave enough to see a new dawn. 

In my continuing search for HOPE, I 
came across an article written by journalist, Andrew Thomas, about “Random Acts of 
Flowers.” As Mr. Thomas says, “In a hectic world, small acts of kindness can make a 
significant impact on people’s lives.” The subject of the article, Larsen Jay, suffered a really 
horrific accident when his ladder collapsed on him. (Sidebar: Stay off ladders, friends 
and neighbors unless you are really young or someone is holding it!) After spending 
three miserable, painful days in the ICU in a hospital in Tennessee, a bouquet of flowers 
appeared in his room. And they kept coming. “When I started to dive into that hole of 
despair, another round of bouquets that would come,” Jay said. Being an active kinda 
guy, stuck in one room in the hospital was agony so he talked his nurses and whoever 
else was visiting him (this was 2007 when one could still visit people in the hospital) into 
wheeling him down the hall. The thing he noticed was how sterile and lifeless the rooms 
were, devoid of color and joy of any kind, unlike the “jungle of floral joy” that his room 
had become. “It looked different, it smelled different. It felt weird.”

Returning to his room, he removed all the cards from his flowers and started loading as 
many as he could carry onto his wheelchair. He started by visiting the room next to his 
where the patient there was clearly exhausted and desperate. He gave her a large bouquet 
of flowers and her entire demeanor changed from desperation to smiles and tears of 
gratitude. Moving on, Jay found a man taking care of his wife who had fallen. Chatting 
with Jay, the man talked of how he had been a gardener all his life and described his 
favorite plants. Jay handed him one of the plants from his wheelchair and it was as if by 
giving this former gardener something to take care of while he took care of his wife, he 
had a garden again.

Thirteen surgeries and 3 months in a wheelchair gave Jay a lot of time to think about the 
moments he had spent with other patients in the hospital and he realized he wanted to 
do something to honor the fact that he had survived his life-threatening accident. It also 
was very clear to him that many of the patients he had met had no one to support them.

So! He began writing down ideas and came up with Random Acts of Flowers. He and 
his wife officially founded the organization in 2008, a year to the date of his accident. 
Random Acts of Flowers would become Jay’s calling and focus in life. In July, 2011, a 
nurse asked him to deliver flowers to one of her patients who had been in the hospital for 
two weeks and wasn’t expected to last another week. Knocking on the door and telling 
this woman he had a delivery for her just wasn’t something she could believe. She insisted 
he had the wrong room. Nope, he insisted, these roses were for her. Handing her the 
flowers, she grabbed his arm and, overwhelmed with joy told him he was the first man 
who had ever given her flowers in her life. She lived.

Experiences such as this persuaded Jay and his wife to leave their business and run 
Random Acts of Flowers on a full-time basis. “The giving of flowers is one of the most 
universal gestures that cuts across all races, religions, income levels, disabilities – you 
name it, it doesn’t matter,” Jay said.

Asked to deliver the most fragrant flowers he could find to a resident of a senior care 
facility, he found that the person was blind but as soon as he walked into her room, she 
sat up in her chair and exclaimed, “Those are Stargazer lilies!” She had been a gardener 
and knew immediately what they were by their fragrance. 

Random Acts of Flowers not only brings smiles, but studies have shown that flowers have 
a positive medical effect on physical and mental health. They can reduce anxiety, lower 
blood pressure and improve one’s outlook tremendously. I, personally, love flowers and 
plants and have them all over my house.

The pandemic has not been helpful to Random Acts of Flowers and they shut down 
in early March of 2020, leaving their almost 1,500 monthly customers without a way 
to deliver flowers to patients in hospitals. But the company has resumed operations! 
Deliveries are being done in a way that is safe and doesn’t expose anyone to the threat 
of COVID-19. “Our mission is really to bring HOPE and encouragement to people in 
healthcare facilities. A lot of the people we serve are isolated even more so now.”

I’m not sure if Random Acts of Flowers is operating anywhere currently, but for 12 years 
they brought HOPE and a little brightness to the lives of people who needed exactly that. 

“Where flowers bloom, so does HOPE!” Lady Bird Johnson

My book page: Amazon.com: Deanne Davis

“Sunrises and Sunflowers Speak Hope” 

Is available there, as is 

“A Tablespoon of Love, A Tablespoon of Laughter.”

Easter is on its way and “The Crown”

My story about what happened to that crown of thorns

Is now a real book! Also available on Amazon.com

City of Sierra Madre

ORDINANCE NO. 1437

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SIERRA MADRE, CALIFORNIA, VESTING THE 
AUTHORITY TO APPOINT THE CITY CLERK IN THE CITY MANAGER

WHEREAS, every general law city is required to have a city clerk, which may be an elective or appointive position; WHEREAS, 
at the March 10, 2020 regular City Council meeting, the City Council directed staff to prepare a resolution to place a measure 
on the ballot to convert the office of City Clerk to an appointive position; WHEREAS, on November 3, 2020, a majority of the 
qualified electors of the City of Sierra Madre voted in support of Measure AC to make the city clerk an appointive position; 

WHEREAS, on November 30, 2020, the Los Angeles County Registrar- Recorder/County Clerk certified the election results of 
November 3, 2020; WHEREAS, Government Code section 36510 states, “The city council may by ordinance vest in the city 
manager its authority to appoint such officers”; and WHEREAS, the City Council desires to vest in the City Manager the authority 
to appoint the City Clerk.

NOW THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SIERRA MADRE, CALIFORNIA, DOES RESOLVE AS 
FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Findings. The City Council finds that all of the preceding recitals are true and correct and are hereby incorporated 
and adopted as findings and determinations by the City Council as if fully set forth herein.

SECTION 2. Delegation. The City Council hereby vests in the City Manager the authority to appoint the City Clerk pursuant to 
Government Code section 36510.

SECTION 3. Severability. If any sections of this Ordinance or any part hereof is for any reason held to be invalid, such invalidity 
shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance or any part thereof. The City Council hereby declares that 
it would have passed each section irrespective of the fact that anyone or more sections be declared invalid.

SECTION 4. Publication. The City Clerk shall cause this Ordinance to be published or posted in accordance with California 
Government Code Section 36933, shall certify to the adoption of this Ordinance and his/her certification, together with proof of 
the publication, to be entered in the book of Ordinances of the City Council.

SECTION 5. Effective Date. This Ordinance shall take effect thirty days after its adoption pursuant to California Government 
Code Section 36937.

PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED this 26th day of January, 2021 by the following vote:

AYES: Mayor Rachelle Arizmendi, Mayor Pro Tem Gene Goss, Council Member Edward Garcia, Council Member 
Kelly Kriebs,

 and Council Member Robert Parkhurst

NOES: None.

ABSTAIN: None.

ABSENT: None.

City of Sierra Madre

ORDINANCE NO. 1438

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIERRA MADRE, CALIFORNIA ADDING CHAPTER 1.10 (SIGNATURES) TO 
TITLE 1 (GENERAL PROVISIONS) OF THE SIERRA MADRE MUNICIPAL REGARDING THE DELEGATION OF 
SIGNING AUTHORITY AND THE USE OF DIGITAL SIGNATURES

WHEREAS, in 1995, the California Legislature adopted Government Code section 16.5, authorizing cities to accept a “digital 
signature” instead of a manual signature; WHEREAS, in 1998, the California Secretary of State adopted California Code of 
Regulations, title 2, sections 22000–22005 delineating strict verification standards that all digital signatures must satisfy; 

WHEREAS, in 1999, the California Legislature the federal Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (“UETA”), codified as Civil 
Code sections 1633.1–1633.17, granting electronic signatures the same legal effect as manual signatures; WHEREAS, the use of 
digital signatures has become increasingly prevalent given the limitations on public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic; 

WHEREAS, the use of digital signatures reduces paper, time, and costs associated with transmitting, approving, and executing 
physical documents; WHEREAS, the City desires to use digital signatures pursuant to Government Code Section 16.5, California 
Code of Regulations, title 2, sections 22000–22005, and Civil Code sections 1633.1–1633.17; and WHEREAS, the City 
desires to codify its existing practice of delegating signing authority under Government Code section 40602.

THEREFORE, CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SIERRA MADRE DOES HEREBY ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Recitals. The Recitals above are true and correct and incorporated herein by this reference.

SECTION 2. Adoption. Chapter 1.10 (Signatures) is added to Title 1 (General Provisions) of the Sierra Madre Municipal Code 
to read as follows.

Chapter 1.10 – SIGNATURES

1.10.010 – Signature Authority.

A. Pursuant to Government Code section 40602, the mayor will sign:

1. All warrants drawn on the city treasury;

2. All resolutions, ordinances, and any other document requiring the city seal;

3. All written contracts and conveyances made or entered into by the city.

B. The city council authorizes the city manager to sign any written contracts and

conveyances approved by the city council on the city’s behalf. The city manager may delegate in writing its authority to sign any
written contract and conveyance to a city staff member.

1.10.020 – Digital signatures.

A. The use of a digital signature that complies with Government Code Section 16.5, California Code of Regulations, title 
2, sections 22000–22005, and Civil Code sections 1633.1–1633.17 will have the same force and effect as the use of a manual 
signature using ink applied to paper. For purposes of this section, a digital signature is a type of electronic signature as defined 
by the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act.

B. The city clerk will identify acceptable technologies and vendors to provide the means for employing digital signatures
under this section, consistent with industry best

practices, to ensure the security and integrity of the data and the signature. The city clerk will further identify the documents for
which the city will accept digital signatures.

C. The city manager will determine in writing which employees will be issued a digital signature and such writing will be
filed with the city clerk.

SECTION 4. Severability. If any sections, subsections, subdivisions, paragraph, sentence, clause or phrase of this Ordinance or 
any part hereof or exhibit hereto is for any reason held to be invalid, such invalidity shall not affect the validity of the remaining 
portions of this Ordinance or any part thereof or exhibit thereto. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed 
each section, subsection, subdivision, paragraph, sentence, clause or phrase hereof, irrespective of the fact that anyone or more 
sections, subsections, subdivisions, paragraph, sentences, clauses or phrases be declared invalid.

SECTION 5. Publication. The City Clerk shall cause this Ordinance to be published or posted in accordance with California 
Government Code Section 36933, shall certify to the adoption of this Ordinance and his/her certification, together with proof of 
the publication, to be entered in the book of Ordinances of the City Council.

SECTION 6. Effective Date. This Ordinance shall take effect thirty days after its adoption pursuant to California Government 
Code Section 36937.

PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED this 26th day of January, 2021 by the following vote:

AYES: Mayor Rachelle Arizmendi, Mayor Pro Tem Gene Goss, Council Member Edward Garcia, Council Member 
Kelly Kriebs,and Council Member Robert Parkhurst

NOES: None.

ABSTAIN: None.

ABSENT: None.


PLEASE STAY SAFE! SOCIALLY DISTANCE! WEAR A MASK! 

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