Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, September 11, 2021

Mountain View News Saturday, September 11, 2021 

AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN! By Nancy Beckham

 To enter the Bailey Canyon parking lot to go hiking or to have a picnic ,one must travel to West 
Carter Street between Lima Street and the gate that leads to the Monastery property called Mater 
Delorosa. The street functions as the entrance to the Bailey Canyon parking lot, or accesses upper 
Grove, a lane like street that accepts additional parking when the Bailey Canyon parking lot is full. 
West Carter also allows the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District to access their debris basin gate 
just beyond their chain link gate. 

 The Sierra Madre Fire Department can also use the debris basin gate to get their equipment inside 
the property and up the hill in case of fire. However, Carter is a 25 foot wide road that is in terrible 
repair that exists without curbs, no sidewalks, and either side of the paved 20 foot road there is dirt 
only. The roughly 2 .5 feet per side of dirt totals up to the 25’ road width on West Carter. The chain 
link fence on the north side surrounds Bailey Canyon so the park can be locked up at night. On the 
south side of the street are wooden fences that were built by the property owners that surround their 
homes. There is no extra land to widen the street, the county is not interested in cooperating to sell 
land for this project, and it was never necessary prior because the street existed to just help cars access 
Bailey Canyon, or the opening the gate to gain access to the debris basin road. 

 This road is now slated to be both an egress and ingress by Urban West, the developer for The Meadows 
at Bailey Canyon Housing Development. (The other street slated to function as an egress and an 
ingress is Sunnyside.) The developer’s plan is to build a two lane road for traffic traveling in and out 
of the housing development, 44-46 feet in width, and simply open the existing gate to the monastery 
property and just dump anywhere from 300-500 cars daily on this very narrow stretch of road. (total 
cars trips are thought to be around 800 cars daily.)

 For a street that was designed for about 100 cars a week, this is an accident waiting to happen. How 
drivers will negotiate from a road 44-46 wide to a road that operates with a 20 foot width is a magic 
trick I would like to see. Instead I can just envision the first head on collision when someone ( a teenager, 
a tired dad, a distracted mom or any driver not paying extreme attention is killed. 

 How can you ask a road to function carrying this amount of traffic it was never designed to do? 
Carter was never intended to function the way the developer plans it to be used. It is an accident waiting 
to happen! Think of the law suits!!! 


REMEMBRANCE 


MICHAEL ELLIS 

1952 – 2021 

Michael Ellis passed away August 24th following a brief 

illness, just one month shy of his 69th birthday. 

Though he was born in Spokane, Washington, his family 

didn’t stay there long, and was always on the move as his 

father was in the military. When his father left the military, 

the family settled in Bell Gardens.

After graduation from high school, Michael enlisted 

in the Air Force with the goal of receiving training. His 

outstanding scores on their testing landed him in their 

prestigious one-year training to become a metrologist, a 

person who specializes in calibration and measurement. 

This training was to provide him with a life-long career. It 

also provided him with the opportunity to serve overseas, 

where his base in Thailand supported the aircraft flying in 

the Vietnam war. There he met and married Sun, bringing 

her and her baby daughter Sherry, whom he would soon 

adopt, back to the U.S. Not long after, their daughter 

Melissa was born.

 Michael continued in the Air Force, eventually serving 

nine years. Now a single dad to Melissa, he left the military 

for the private sector and accepted a position with Baxter 

Pharmaceuticals in their Glendale production plant. 

He worked there for decades, eventually becoming the 


metrologist for their research facility in Duarte. He would 
finish out his career running the Finesse Solutions calibrations lab In Irwindale.

 Michael was very active in the community, helping the Sierra Madre Civic Club and the Sierra 
Madre Historical Preservation Society. Later in life, he joined the Tournament of Roses. He was 
very involved in the Elks, working his way up through their officer positions to become the 
Pasadena Lodge’s Exalted Ruler and then going on to serve in district positions, the last of which 
was District Deputy Grand Exalted Ruler. 

Michael was also an outstanding dancer whose favorite dance was the Lindy Hop. His black and 
white swing dance shoes became his trademark. It was at dance class that he met his future wife, 
Maggie. They would have 25 wonderful years together, as he was the best and kindest of husbands. 
In his retirement he would achieve his dream of escorting a float down Colorado Boulevard, 
decked out in his white suit and riding a white scooter. He also bought his retirement dream, a 
1969 Corvette and took it to car shows. 

 Michael is survived by his stunned and grieving family: sister Marcella Gilmour and her husband 
Bob of Flower Mound, Texas; daughter Sherry Karle and husband Jake of San Antonio, Texas; 
daughter Melissa Flynn and her husband Brian of Palmdale, California; and wife Maggie of Sierra 
Madre.

 His daughter Melissa calls him “my first love, my forever hero.” A gentle and kind man, a man 
of dedicated responsibility to those he loved, a man free of malice or prejudice, a man of absolute 
integrity, Michael was a hero to all of us whose lives he touched. 

COVID 19 UPDATE PAGE 8 
INSIDE MOUNTAIN VIEWS NEWS THIS WEEK 
SIERRA MADRE NEWS Pgs 3, 4 
PASADENA NEWS Page 5 
SO. PAS/SAN MARINO/ALTADENA Page 6 
ARCADIA/MONROVIA & MORE Page 7 
AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY Page 8 
TABLE FOR TWO - PETER DILLS 
EDUCATION & YOUTH Page 10 
NEW: CROSSWORD PUZZLE 
FAMILY MATTERS 
BEST FRIENDS Page 11 
CHRISTOPHER NYERGES 
THE GOOD LIFE Page 12 
SENIOR HAPPENINGS 
OPINION Page 13 
LEGAL NOTICES Page 14 


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Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 
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