The campaign over a controversial ballot measure to restrict development at Santa Anita Park race track is heating up, with two community groups coming out against the initiative and a new group being formed to support it. Measure M requires a majority vote of approval from Arcadia residents for any change in land use requested by Santa Anita.
Santa Anita Avenue carries 33,000 cars a day. If a train bridge is not built, the road will be blocked about every five minutes during rush hour. Measure A would allocate $8 million to build a Gold Line train bridge for the Gold Line extension. The bond measure would cost property taxpayers about $7 per year for every $100,000 of assessed valuation. Although the bond measure has many vocal supporters, this city has traditionally resisted new taxes.
Arcadia voters will decide, in a special election next week, whether or not to approve ballot Measure A, which seeks to protect the city's right to collect taxes on cell phone usage. Measure A would not raise any taxes. The city already collects taxes on residential cell phone usage and is seeking to legally protect that practice by redefining what constitutes a telecommunications tax.
Signatures supporting two ballot initiatives sponsored by Westfield Shoppingtown Santa Anita went to the City Clerk's office Tuesday for validation. Westfield's iniatives would ban billboards at The Shops at Santa Anita and require free parking.
Santa Anita Park: think of human toll if track closes. Workers gather at rally to warn about how shutting down horse racing permanently over the twenty-nine horse deaths would impact thousands of employees. Reforms have been instituted at Santa Anita Park, including stricter rules for medications and more thorough examinations, but horse deaths are inevitable in horse racing. Rally calls for compassion for track employees too, whose livelihoods will be affected by a closure. They are an already vulnerable population.
City Council voted 5-0 to place the controversial ballot measure to restrict development at Santa Anita Park race track before voters in the November presidential campaign.
Santa Anita REAlty Enterprises has poured more than $78,000 into the campaign to defeat Measure M, the Nov. 5 ballot measure to give voters veto power over the development of an entertainment complex near the company's race track.
Dr. Dino Clarizio, Medical Director for the California Thoroughbred Horsemen's Foundation, spends one day every week at the Clinic he helps operate at Santa Anita Park race track caring for race track personnel and their families.
Santa Anita Park workers rally, seeking return of horse racing. More than 50 backstretch workers at Santa Anita Park rallied outside Board of Supervisors offices in downtown Los Angeles to request county support for a proposal to resume live horse racing. They argue they are onsite daily already caring for horses stabled at the racetrack and there would be little additional risk to host racing without spectators.
Santa Anita Park Race Track would like to build a helipad on the hillside on the north edge of its property and has sent a letter to its neighbors to the north asking if they have any objections.
Alhambra city mayor Mark Paulson weighs in on Arcadia ballot Measure P, regarding parking at the proposed Shops at Santa Anita mall. Arcadia City Hall feels he has crossed a line.
If Proposition 68 is approved on the 2004 ballot, slot machines will be operated at Santa Anita Park. This is a statewide initiative about which City of Arcadia officials remained neutral.
Cities fighting a sports betting ballot initiative. A coalition claims the state measure, from Pechanga Resort Casino, referred to as the Tribal Sports Wagering Act, would fuel excessive litigation against card rooms, potentially shutting them down, effectively killing 32,000 jobs. It would allow sports wagering at tribal casinos and at four California racetracks-Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress, Del Mar in San Diego, and Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley.
Kevin Modesti writes about the race horse Zenyatta, winner of the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park. Zenyatta stunned the world's fastest thoroughbreds with a last-to-first rally in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic. Zenyatta is owned by Jerry and Ann Moss. Jerry Moss is the co-founder of A & M Records (with Herb Alpert) and was named after an album by 1980s rock group The Police.