Arcadia police arrested two Arcadia High School students 16, and 15, in connection with a December 11 racial incident in which a cross was burned and anti-Asian epithets were scrawled on the front yard of a home in the 200 block of Arbolada Drive. The two boys were booked for damaging property based on ethnic origin and were released to the custody of their parents.
Joseph I, 15, a 9th-grader at Foothills Junior High School has been named one of 15 semifinalists in the instrumental music category for the Music Center's Second Annual Spotlight Award. The Spotlight Award Ceremony and Dinner will be held March 5 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Mr. I has also been invited to attend master classes given by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The 49-year-old Anoakia School, facing a June deadline for relocation, has opted for local print advertising. Owner Lowry McCaslin apparently wants to develop the property at Foothill Blvd. and Baldwin Ave. However, the school also has numerous city fire code violations and a building that is not up to seismic standards. The school currently has 279 students from K-8th grade.
The Arcadia City Council will be asked to pass a resolution calling for an immediate halt to the recent malathion-laden helicopter assaults on the medfly. Many have expressed concerns about the repeated spraying, but health and agricultural officials insist that malathion is harmless to humans in the quantities being used.
Arcadia George A. Bolton, social science instructor at San Bernardino Valley College and Craafton Hills College, Yucaipa, has been included in the recent edition of "Who's Who in California." Bolton is a staff analyst for the department of environmental health services for San Bernardino County, while continuing to teach part-time at the colleges. He was honored after a personal/training study he published received national attention.
The Arcadia Rotary Club awarded grants totaling $4,990 to 17 teachers at the February 13 Arcadia Board of Education meeting. Grants ranging from $175 to $300 were given to individual teachers to help with special classroom projects. The teachers represented 5 of the 6 Arcadia elementary schools, all 3 junior high schools and both Arcadia and Huntington high schools.
Ten Arcadia High School students have been selected as National Merit finalists, placing them among 14,000 competing for the 6100 available Merit Scholarships. The seniors are Kenneth Branson, Sidney Chung, Enrique Colayco, Bonnie Flinn, Norbert Hsu, Jacqueline Luk, Douglas McCreary, Regina Momblanco, David Park and Henry Tseng.
Police have arrested nine people who are believed to be members of a San Gabriel Valley Asian gang that has been under investigation in recent months for terrorizing local Asian youths. Four adults and five juveniles were taken into custody after police linked them with a February 15 kidnapping, attempted extortion and assault.
Kiewit Pacific Company, a construction firm formerly based in Arcadia and now located in Santa Fe Springs was fined $50,000 for burying 50 industrial drums, of which 2 contained hazardous liquid, on its Arcadia property between 1982 and 1985.
A many as 60 of the trees on Orange Grove Ave., the "county road" running from Michillinda Blvd. to Santa Anita Ave., could be endangered by a proposed road-widening project currently under consideration by Arcadia and Sierra Madre. The street would be widened from 30 to 36 ft. since the street is considered too narrow for the trash bins that residents often leave in the road, constituting a hazard.
Mayor Roger Chandler lost his bid for re-election as challengers George Fasching and Joseph Ciraulo and incumbent Robert Harbicht were elected to the Arcadia City Council. Fasching led with 27.2% of the vote, followed by Ciraulo with 22.1% and Harbicht with 19.8%.
23 "heroes and heroines" in the Arcadia Unified School District were honored by the Board of Education in the first "Profiles in Excellence" awards. The awards were presented to "individuals who maintain a standard of excellence in their work and who represent those values and qualities which make Arcadia a special place for students." Names and positions of winners are given.
Arcadia police are using SMART, or Speed Monitoring Awareness Radar Trailer, to educate residents into "voluntary compliance" with posted speeds. Placed at various locations, the trailers have a changeable sign for legal speed limits and an electronic readout of the actual speed of each car that whizzes by. The device can read speeds from about 1/4 mile away.
Dale Allen, 72, has been named Arcadia Senior Citizen of the Year for 1990. He has helped to fight for and plan the $4.4 million senior center that will be completed next spring.
Gerald A. Parker, last years's City Employee of the Year, has been appointed director of finance. Parker replaces Alan Murphy, who died earlier this month after a long battle with cancer.
A federal judge has ordered Peter Kiewit and its subsidiary, Kiewit Pacific Co., now located in Santa Fe Springs, to pay the city of Arcadia the cost of cleaning up contaminated soil at the Santa Clara Street property it sold to the Arcadia Redevelopment Agency in 1985. The hazardous waste has put a new office building project on hold for more than a year and a half.
Bill Connolly, 67, has closed his White Eyes Indian Shop, located south of Huntington Drive on First Avenue. First opened in 1964, the property was sold to Don Ta of Alhambra, who plans to open a real estate office.
The Arcadia Post 247 American Legion members will be leaving their home of 69 years to move to a new meeting place sometime in the next few months. Faced with dwindling funds to finance much-needed repairs for their 2-story hall, the group has sold their property to a development firm that wants to build 40 homes in the area.
Climaxing a 16-month battle, the state Board of Education in Sacramento voted 9-0 to deny a petition by a group of Sierra Madre parents to have the city join the Arcadia Unified School District.