This week's SGV Connect features a pair of interviews that will change and improve the lives of residents of the San Gabriel Valley.

First, we talk with Alhambra Councilmember Adele Andrade-Stadler. Andrade-Stadler is the winner of this year's Elected Official of the Year award given by ActiveSGV at their Noche de las Luminarias. You can read more about her award and her relationship with ActiveSGV at their ActiveBlog. 

At the end of the interview, we discuss the upcoming Sustainability Plan for Alhambra that should be released for public review later this month. Read a transcript of the interview, here.

The second interview is with Steve Farley. While Farley is a long-time Streetsblogger, he drops a reference to Aaron Naperstek who founded Streetsblog in 2006, and a former State Senator in Arizona, it's his art we're interested in. Farley is the artist in charge of the public art that will be part of the future Gold Line Station in Pomona. Read a transcript of the interview, here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

This week's SGV Connect focuses on two different parking programs in Pasadena.

As the city closes in on approving its Strategic Parking Plan, we welcome retired UCLA economics professor and parking pricing guru Donald Shoup. Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking which is still considered essential reading for urban planners decades after its original publication. He was also involved when Pasadena first considered variable parking prices for its Playhouse District.

As you can imagine, he has a lot to say.

Our second interview is with Tashera Taylor, Melody McNulty, and Catherine Cheung of Foothill Unity Center. Foothill Unity is currently piloting a safe parking program in a church lot in Pasadena. For those of you that don't know, safe parking is a program where people who are living in their car can apply for space to park every night in a safe environment where they have access to running water, food and social services. The trio outlines Foothill's program, how they plan to grow, and the important social program and relief that has developed for parkers taking part in their program.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

This week’s SGV Connect Podcast is the second part of a two part series on housing and tenants issues in the San Gabriel Valley and features Connie Tamkin, the president of the San Gabriel Valley Community Land Trust. If you missed part one of the series with Allison Henry, one of the leaders of the San Gabriel Valley Tenants Council, you can find the audio and transcript here.

As with the first podcast, Damien and Chris were on-site for the interview, which covered the history of the new community land trust, some of the projects it's working on and how to effectively advocate for marginalized communities as an organization when many of the board members and volunteers are white collar professionals. 

There’s also a lot of information about the various land trust models and their place in advocating for and providing housing options in a supply-restricted market. So if you’re looking for a great primer for someone not well-versed in this issue; this podcast is a great place for them to start.

If you prefer the typed word, you can read a transcript of the interview here. 

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

This week’s podcast is the first in a two-podcast mini-series looking at housing issues in the San Gabriel Valley. In this podcast, Damien and Chris talk to Allison Henry, an SGV housing justice organizer with LA Forward and co-founder of the San Gabriel Valley Tenants Alliance.

In the podcast, we discuss the recent and long-term history of the battle for housing justice in the SGV and how local politics can lead to very different policies in cities that are just next to each other. While it’s no surprise that the cost of housing is high in Southern California, Henry argues that the policies in many cities don’t meet the needs of renters, even in cities that have large populations that aren’t homeowners.

“I think people would be really shocked at not just how many cities are renter majority cities, but some of the percentages of those cities, it's not 50/50,” Henry says of how many renters are in these cities.

You can listen in on our podcast below, or if you prefer to read a transcript, you can find it here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

On Saturday, the Gold Line Foothill Construction Authority is hosting a ceremony to commemorate the completion of the light rail track system for the 9.1-mile, four-station Foothill Gold Line light rail project from Glendora to Pomona. The ceremony is taking place this Saturday, June 24, 2023, at 9:30 a.m., at the D Street railroad crossing (north of Arrow Highway) in the city of La Verne.

During the event, the last of 230,630 rail clips will be driven into place (rail clips permanently attach the steel rail to the concrete ties), marking the completion of the new light rail tracks.

This week's first interview features Habib Balian, the executive director for the construction authority. Balian discusses what's next for the project and the importance of this milestone to the Gold Line and our regional rail network.

Speaking of our regional rail network, our second interview features Joe Linton and was recorded the day that the Regional Connector opened in Downtown Los Angeles. Linton discusses how the newly opened 2 mile rail connector is a key part of connecting L.A. County with rail.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

In our first interview this week, Chris Greenspon interviews Nathan Allen, the owner of Underdog Bookstore in downtown Monrovia. In Nathan's own words, "Underdog Bookstore, targets specifically books by and about authors of color, as well as LGBT authors, who we consider underdogs, as well as local vendors." Allen explains the need to create safe spaces for youth, especially people of color and LGBTQ+, and provides an overview of life underdogs throughout the SGV.

To read a transcript of the interview, click here.

In our second interview, frequent SGV Connect guest (and Streetsblog LA Editor) Joe Linton takes a turn on the other end of the microphone. Linton interviews Stans Bike Shop owner Carlos Morales who has been advising state regulators about possible rules regarding e-bikes.

To read a transcript of the interview, click here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

This week’s SGV Connect is the second in our “Reclaimers” series, focusing on the efforts of a group of formerly homeless activists in the El Sereno to be housed in formerly unoccupied homes owned by Caltrans.

The first interview featured six Reclaimers who shared their personal stories on how they fell into homelessness, strived to be rehoused, and then life as a Reclaimer. The stories are powerful and raw. You can hear the podcast here, and read the transcript here.

Today’s podcast is the follow-up to that one. We are joined by Timothy Ivison with the United Caltrans Tenants Union and Kristina Meshelski, a leader with the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and a philosophy professor at Cal State Northridge. This pair of activists have worked with and adjacent to the Reclaimer movement.

A full transcript of this interview can be found here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of Downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

We are Reclaimers because we have to because of desperation. - Benito, one of the Reclaimers living in El Sereno.

SGV Connect is sponsored by Foothill Transit. Foothill Transit was not consulted about the content of this podcast and the views expressed are those of the participants and interviewer and may or may not be representative of the views of Foothill Transit, its board, or its staff.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to interview four of the El Sereno Caltrans Home Reclaimers: Benito, Marta, Ruby and Sandra. They were joined by two supporters, Roberto Flores and Franny Martinez. I thought the interview would be a standard SGV Connect, updating listeners to the status of the reclaimer movement and their own lives since our last update over a year ago. What happened instead was an hour and ten minute emotional discussion of their lives both as Reclaimers and previously as people experiencing homelessness, why they chose to occupy unoccupied Caltrans-owned properties, their current legal status, and what will happen if courts uphold an eviction notice they received last month.

So we’re doing things a little differently this time. We’re skipping our regular introduction, and going right into the interview in the podcast. Below the embed, instead of the usual ad text is a story and summary of the interview which might be a little easier for folks to follow than the transcript (which you can read here if you choose.)

On the night of March 14, 2020, the world was in crisis. The COVID-19 shutdowns were just starting to roll across California, and the long- and short-term future was looking cloudy. That evening a group of people experiencing homelessness, with the support of a team of activists and community members broke into unoccupied Caltrans-owned houses and (re)claimed them as a place to live for themselves and their families. Caltrans owns houses along the 710-corridor as part of their now-abandoned efforts to extend the 710 Freeway north from its current terminus.

“I am from El Sereno. I saw these homes empty. And I always thought, ‘How come nobody does anything?’, recounted Sandra. “I never connected the way how these homes were hoarded and how other people are homeless in their tents. But when somebody mentioned that we're going to squat in them, it totally makes sense….why hasn’t somebody done this sooner?”

At the time, nobody was exactly sure what would happen. Would the state police, LAPD or the Sheriffs show up and forcibly remove them? Would the chaos of the moment allow them to slip by unnoticed for a period of time? The initial reclaiming of the houses was meant as a statement about how unjust it was for so many houses to be unsettled when the homeless crisis locally, regionally and nationally was so large; but what would happen to the Reclaimers who were in the houses themselves?

In the end, the Reclaimers were either allowed to stay or moved to different short-term housing while they awaited a chance to move into permanent housing.

“The state and the whole world was in chaos,” recounts Marta of the day she moved in to her reclaimed home. “So they didn't take us out. Governor Newsom told the CHP to stand down and not do anything when we reclaimed. But then with that process came also an offer to HACLA [Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles] and PATH [People Assisting the Homeless] agency here in Los Angeles, to give us temporary housing.”

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. 

For over three years, the Reclaimers have signed leases with Caltrans, and had them expire without permanent housing offers.

They created the El Sereno Community Land Trust to purchase as many of the homes as it could to offer to Reclaimers and others experiencing homelessness; but they found the Trust excluded from local planning by disgraced racist Councilmember Kevin DeLeon and state legislation by Senator María Elena Durazo.

They have put in roots in the community, or deeper roots for those with a previous connection; but still received eviction notices for their temporary housing last month. Instead of a move into permanent housing, they find themselves fighting in court for the right to stay where they are.

But while working with, or trying to work with, the government has proven difficult and frustrating, the Reclaimers have been buoyed by the support of a progressive community in Los Angeles, and with some education found that their physical neighbors would come to appreciate and welcome them as well.

“It was a lot of misinformation,” recounts Marta of her first interactions with her new neighbors. “They were saying that the Reclaimers were not from El Sereno. The majority of the Reclaimers are actually from this community, from El Sereno…Another thing that they said [was that] there was a lot of other services, or other things, that the city provides…as Sandra said that she wasn't offered any.”

Over time, things began to change. 

“In getting to know the neighbors and also talking to them about this misinformation; some of them did change their minds, not all of them. And my experience with my current neighbors is really good,” she continued. “Soon as I moved in, they offered material help. I am a single mother of two daughters, and so they also offered, you know, just to keep an eye out and keep me and my daughter safe, which I totally am grateful for.”

Which isn’t to say it has been all smooth sailing in the interactions with the previously housed community. Benito is older, and his English isn’t as smooth as the other Reclaimers in the interview. He contrasts his experiences with the community broadly with that of his physical neighbors.

“I have one very good neighbor. And I have two neighbors who actually don't talk to me. I think they're confused. Because they are confused about the idea of ‘law and order.’ …They are really good people. So they said they understand the homeless, but this is not a way to take the…to go in the house illegally.” Benito says.

“Some neighbors are angry, but there are more neighbors on our side. Who opened the house for us? The neighbors. Who was bringing us food? The neighbors. Who was keeping guard in the street to keep us safe? The neighbors. The people.”

Benito, like the other Reclaimers on the call, recounts the differences between life as an unhoused person on the street and life as a Reclaimer. In response to a question of, “Why?” His answer is simple. 

“​​We are reclaimer because we have to…because of desperation,” he said.

And part of that desperation, as Marta mentions above, is that the services offered by the city and county aren’t sufficient to meet the needs of the mammoth unhoused population. Sandra and her family lived in a park as part of a large encampment near the Eastside Café where she, Marta, Franny and Roberto met to take part in the interview. The encampment was well known in the neighborhood and was politically controversial. In her months living in the encampment, she said she could not remember a time when social services reached out to offer help. 

“Not one time. Not one time did someone come to offer me services,” Sandra recounted of her time in the park. But once the Reclaimers were in the house and the Governor ordered CHP to stand down, things changed. “I remember people were getting placed in hotels. But before that, they didn't even want to do a homeless count.”

Which isn’t to say the relationship between the Reclaimers and government agencies has been smooth. From basic annoyances - Ruby recounting how she often would have to “tell her life story” to multiple people from the same department over the course of a week - to larger ones; the first leases Reclaimers signed were described as “carceral” by the people who signed them. The road has been bumpy. Offers for more stable housing are often far away from where the Reclaimers currently live, which would take them away from support networks, medical care and jobs.

“The houses are there.” Is a refrain you can hear repeatedly throughout the interview as the Reclaimers wonder why agencies seem intent on moving them away from the neighborhood they live in, and in many cases grew up in, instead of finding ways for them to stay where they are.

The answer is simple. The city and county have designs for the “Caltrans homes” in El Sereno. DeLeon was a de facto spokesperson for the program but has shrunk to the background following the release of his racist diatribe in the “fed tapes” and his efforts to use redistricting to marginalize historically black communities. Streetsblog broke down the differences between DeLeon’s plans and those offered by the community in an article last year. However, just because DeLeon is in the background doesn’t mean the plans have changed.

“Kevin De Leon's plans didn't go by the wayside,” explains Flores. “What happened is that HACLA is substituting in for Kevin de Leon and trying to legitimize the proposal.”

The DeLeon/HACLA proposal has greater power behind it because of S.B. 51, authored by Senator Maria Elena Durazo, and signed into law last year. Among other things, the legislation disallows the selling of Caltrans housing to a co-op in El Sereno. Curiously, this provision of the legislation does not apply to properties in Pasadena and South Pasadena that are also owned by Caltrans and are part of the I-710 Corridor.

“I'm really irritated with Maria Elena Durazo,” begins Ruby. “She's the image of, of what I once looked up to as an activist…somebody that was standing up for the marginalized, the unhoused, the immigrant, the hungry.”

But after S.B. 51, that image changed.  “For what? For her to acquire this, this position in the state and all of a sudden to decide that that's not what El Sereno needs?.... By creating a bill that was going to leave Pasadena and Alhambra, good and allow them purchase the houses in their hood. But not El Sereno? Because we're Brown, we can't buy the houses?”

While the Reclaimers have lived stressful lives, the urgency moved back into desperation when eviction notices arrived last month giving them three days to vacate their properties. The Reclaimers immediately took legal action to vacate the notice, but they face a dark short-term future should they fail in court. While there may not be a “Plan B” if they lose in court, going back to the streets is not an option.

“You're going to have to take me out in handcuffs,” says Ruby.

“But we're definitely not going to go back to the streets. I do not plan to go back to my car,” adds Sandra.

“There is only ‘Plan A.’ And that’s to fight, fight, fight, fight,” finishes Benito.

And if there’s one message the Reclaimers would like to leave, it’s that this movement isn’t just about them. Their story, their struggle, will hopefully end with them permanently housed. But they also hope they are part of a larger struggle to improve conditions for unhoused people throughout the world by showing what is possible if governments’ efforts are to truly help the unhoused become housed again.

“We're not here to just occupy space, we want to create justice for not only for El Sereno, but I think for housing in general,” says Ruby. “This is a global epidemic at this point.” And the solution is for the government to work with the unhoused, and work with the Reclaimers instead of working around or even against them.

“We want to see the government sitting down and negotiating with the Reclaimers,” concludes Fanny. “They should create a pathway in housing homeless people instead of criminalizing them. Because as we see, the homeless encampments are being gated. And that's a loud and clear response from the government saying, ‘We don't want you in the streets’…They need to sit down and negotiate with the Reclaimers and create a pathway with the Reclaimers to house homeless folks. Because who else better than the homeless people who reclaim these homes and make it into a house for themselves and their families and their kids?”

This week's SGV Connect features a pair of interviews with former Pasadena Mayor Rick Cole and San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps (SGVCC). Director Norma Quinones.

In our first interview, Damien talks with Cole ostensibly about the dozen opinion pieces Cole has written in 2023 about how Pasadena can grow as a city in the future. In the interview Cole laments how Pasadena has changed in the two decades since he was mayor and hopes the city will recommit itself to its progressive routes in coming years.

In the second half of the interview, Cole discusses his current job working with L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia and what political leaders can learn from Mejia's unconventional style. You can find Cole's articles (and a few other ones that have nothing to do with him), by clicking here.

For a transcript of the interview, click here.

In the second interview, Quinones explains what the SGVCC does: hiring youth in need of job training, and enrolling them in high school if necessary. The job sites they learn on include greening the region's streets with native plants, repainting the Puente Valley's county walls in a continuation of the area's iconic but sometimes fading vine murals, and pulling out deadwood and invasive species in the San Gabriel Mountains. Quinones, from Baldwin Park, says these young people come directly from the communities where they work. 

For a transcript of the interview, click here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of Downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon catch up with Alhambra Councilmember and State Senate candidate Sasha Renée Pérez on the state of her candidacty and what is going on in Alhambra. The interview, the first in a series on the election, pings back and forth between her work in Alhambra and her vision for Senate District 25

This is Pérez's third time on SGV Connect. To listen to the other podcasts, click here. To read a transcript of the interview, click here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of Downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Welcome to SGV Connect episode 106, the first episode of 2023. This episode is nearly an hour long with a pair of great, but very different, interviews.

First, Chris Greenspon interviews Steve Valenzuela, El Monte poet and writer in residence for the new Zamora Art House in El Monte. The interview touches on Valenzuela’s poetry, his work as a school teacher and how his life experiences influence his poetry, teaching and advocacy. The interview touches on his collaborations with the South El Monte Art Posse, who have been a fixture in our coverage going back to SGV Connect #4. For a written transcript of today’s interview, click here.

In our second interview, Damien interviews the team at Studio-MLA and LA County Parks that is working on the Puente Hills Landfill Park project.The team decided on an innovative outreach plan for the park that includes bike rides and hiking tours of the park area in addition to more traditional outreach. As one might expect, different outreach has led to some surprising conversations. Back in July, Chris interviewed Supervisor Hilda Solis after the LA County Board of Supervisors announced funding for the park in July. For a written transcript of today’s interview, click here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of Downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

It's mid-December, and that means it's time for our annual end-of-the-year SGV Connect Podcast featuring not just Damien Newton and Chris Greenspon, but also Streetsblog LA Editor Joe Linton and Streetsblog California Editor Melanie Curry. After that, we have one last interview by Chris with John Axtell published a literary zine this year about the landscape and culture of the SGV. John and Chris talk quite a bit about open spaces, and rebuilding the industrial wastelands around the 605.

But first, Curry kicks off the podcast with a review of the legislation and other decisions made in Sacramento that have and will impact how the San Gabriel Valley grows and changes in the coming decades. In October she wrote an overview of some of the biggest pieces of legislation that the Governor signed (or didn't sign) and earlier this week she wrote a very early review of what could happen in the legislature in 2023.

Next, Joe Linton discussed some of the changes that will be happening with the L.A. County Government and with Metro. The agency celebrated the restoration of service to pre-pandemic levels in the last month. New County Supervisors, and a new L.A. Mayor, signal that some other changes could be coming to the agency soon.

Closing out the first portion of the podcast, Chris updates on the two biggest stories covered after he took over the beat from Kris Fortin: The Bus Rapid Transit concepts
from the SGV Transit Feasibility Study and when County supervisors tossed out an activist appeal to slow construction on 85 condo units on a decommissioned school site in Hacienda Heights.

To read a transcript of the interview beteen Chris and John Axtell, click here. To read a transcript of the discussion between the Streetsblog team, click here.

Before we close out SGV Connect for the year, we wanted to remind everyone that Streetsblog L.A. is a non-profit and relies on reader donations to continue publishing. Even though our SGV regional coverage is sponsored, we need reader donations to maintain our story budgets and independent voice. Please consider making a tax-free donation today. Get started by clicking here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

This week’s SGV Connect features an over forty minute interview by Chris Greenspon with author and history professor James Zarsadiaz about his recent book, Resisting Change in Suburbia: Asian Immigrants and Frontier Nostalgia in L.A. (Buy it from University of California Press, here.)

Zarsadiaz’s book focuses on six communities, five in the San Gabriel Valley (Walnut, Diamond Bar, Rowland Heights, and Heights, and a community within the city of Pomona known as Phillips Ranch) and Chino Hills in San Bernardino. The six communities have a similar development pattern and history where a large incoming community of immigrants from Asia changed neighborhoods and created discomfort for their existing, mostly white, new neighbors.

“And so I talked a great length about the ways in which there was peacemaking. But of course, there was still a bit of hurt feelings from both sides. And a lot of the criticism was generated around concerns and of immigrants and nativism; but some of it also was based on just kind of discomfort with change,” Zarsadiaz says in the interview. 

“Broadly speaking, I think for a lot of white residents, who were critical believed that it wasn’t necessarily always rooted in nativism or xenophobia. For them, it was just kind of seeing their world  changed before their eyes and trying to grapple with that change.”

To read the rest of the interview, click here or listen in at SGV Connect, below.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

With the next election day less than two months away, SGV Connect sits down with Topher Mathers who reviewed dozens of ballot measures throughout the San Gabriel Valley before Active SGV made endorsements for local measures throughout SGV cities.

This is our second podcast focusing on the 2022 election. SGV Connect #100 featured an interview with Ricardo Martinez, a progressive challenger to the incumbent La Puente Mayor and Katrina Kaiser with Streets for All who moderated a City Council debate in Monterey Park.

For a full list of their endorsements, and details for why they endorsed each measure, listen on or visit the Active SGV Elections page. You can also read a full transcript of the talk between Damien and Topher on Streetsblog. If you haven't received your ballot, or don't know where you can cast an in-person ballot, visit the L.A. County Elections page.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

This week's SGV Connect is a bit of a departure from our usual format. Instead of two interviews, we start with a discussion between Damien and Chris about a lawsuit filed by the City of San Dimas against the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority. The lawsuit calls for a halt to constuction while the issue of where the parking lot for the station is built.

The discussion builds on years of reporting, some by Streetsblog and some by other local news. For more background please read, "San Dimas Lawsuit Over Light Rail Parking Project May Mean the Train Skips the Station" from the Daily News earlier this month, "San Dimas Has a List of Issues It Wants the Gold Line Authority to Address" from the Daily Bulletin in 2018, and "Reduced Parking Being Studied for Planned Foothill Gold Line Extension" from Streetsblog in 2020.

After that, Chris interviews Julian Lucas. Lucas is a photographer, publisher, bookseller and Pomona native. He shares his thoughts on the local art scene and he has  an exhibit of street photography up
at the Bunnygunner Gallery in Claremont through the end of the month. For more details and hours of operation for Bunnygunner, click here.

Would you rather read than listen? Click here for the discussion on the San Dimas parking controversy, and here for the interview with Julian Lucas.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

This week's SGV Connect features an interview with the director of the Pasadena Department of Transportation and Vincent LaRocca of the new group ride bicycling group SGV Cycling.

As Damien notes in our first interview with Pasadena's Laura Cornejo, SGV Connect was long overdue for a story on the Rose City. In the couple of days since we recorded the podcast, Chris Greenspon covered the 19 projects that the city is planning to build with repurposed funds from the defunct 710 expansion project, but before that it had been awhile.

In just the past couple of months, Pasadena has embraced a Safe Systems approach to transportation planning. Cornejo explains what that is and promotes the city's focus on pilot and demonstration programs to show Pasadenans what could be possible on their streets. For a full transcript of the interview, click here.

In our second interview, Chris interviews Vincent La Rocca, one of the members of SGV Cycling. LaRocca describes some of their recent rides and tells listeners how they can get in on the fun. For a full transcript of their discussion, click here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

This week's SGV Connect features two interviews by Chris Greenspon on two different, but important issues.

First, Chris interviews James Drevno, a Senior Regional Planner with L.A. County Planning. James is working on the East San Gabriel Valley Area Plan which focuses on the unincorporated “islands” that are scattered throughout San Gabriel Valley. Within these areas, the Mobility Action Plan focuses on where there is the most need for bicycle and transit infrastructure improvements. To read a transcript of the interview between Chris and James, click here.

Next, Chris sits down with Josh Sanchez, a former SAC student who is  transferring to Cal Poly Pomona. This eye opening conversation focuses on Josh's experience local and student journalism. What happens to areas when this type of journalism goes away in a tightening media market and what happens to journalists who can't afford to pursue their career anymore? For a full transcript of the discussion between Chris and Josh, click here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

This week's SGV Connect focuses on a pair of local city council races in the cities of La Puente and Monterey Park.

The first interview features Ricardo Martinez, a progressive challenger to the incumbent City Councilmember and Mayor Charlie Klinakis. The interview touches on Martinez's personal history, platform, and plans to revitalize the city by encouraging investment in La Puente's downtown.

In the second interview, Damien talks with Katrina Kaiser with Streets for All. They helped program and moderated a debate in Monterey Park working with locals with Safe Streets for SGV last week with four candidates for City Council. Kaiser explains how the debate shows differences between candidates and inform Streets for All's endorsement process. If you'd like to watch the entire debate, you can do so, here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

This week on SGV Connect, we’re bringing you a special interview with Adolfo Guzman-Lopez and then our quarterly update with Melanie Curry of Streetsblog California.

Adolfo is a household name in the public radio world, covering higher education at KPCC. He spent the last year on a special assignment, investigating the death of a 90’s Chicano civil rights activist from Baldwin Park, Oscar Gomez for a podcast from KPCC’s LAist Studios.

Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary follows Gomez’s young adult life from star athlete and scholar at Baldwin Park High School to student activist at UC Davis and his mysterious end below the cliffs of the coast off UC Santa Barbara. Chris’ interview with Adolfo looks at Oscar’s roots and legacy in the San Gabriel Valley, the pressures he was under as a student and activist, and Adolfo’s own coming out as a Chicano rights activist at the same time as Oscar… a part of his identity he’s long shielded from his journalism career.

Damien and Melanie touch base on what the new state budget means for cities' sidewalks, bike lanes and bus stops as well as talk about the legisltation that is, and isn't, moving. For a more detailed look at the legislation, check out her most recent legislative update. 

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

This week's SGV Connect Podcasdt features an interview by Chris Greenspon with two members of the Memories of El Monte collective, Aron Montenegro and Alma Zarate. Chris visited the collective's new home on 626 Day when Memories of El Monte celebrated their new space and the local holiday.

Memories of El Monte is planning to open a soup kitchen in January and possibly expand with a cafe and even bar in the coming years. The interview covers their plans, the collective's goals, and what makes Memories' preferred coffee so special.

For a full transcript of our interview, click here. You can also check out our podcast with Memories of El Monte conducted last year, by clicking here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

This week sees a special #SGV Connect podcast with Damien Newton interviewing Habib Balian, the executive director of the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority. As we publish this podcast, the Authority is holding a press conference to celebrate the 50% completion point of the current Gold Line extension out to Pomona.

For a full transcript of our interview, click here. Read the press release for today’s event, here.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn,iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.

First, Chris visits La Cañada Flintridge to interview Senator Anthony Portantino. Portantino famously became an avid cyclist during the Coronavirus Stay-at-Home orders and has developed his own bicycling exercise routine. He has taken his new bicycling passion with him to Sacramento where he authored legislation that would force more communities to plan for and move on bicycle and pedestrian planning.

In our second interview, Damien talks with Wes Reutimann and Danielle Zamora with Active SGV. The conversation starts with a wrap-up of the recent 626 Golden Streets a couple of weeks ago and continues with a discussion of Active Transportation planning throughout San Gabriel Valley cities.

At the end of the podcast, Damien mentions this action alert put out by Active SGV in South Pasadena. The City Council is going to vote on a new project list for Metro funding and sadly their draft list is missing many walking, bicycling and transit projects in the city's transportation plan.

And if you want to hear more podcasts featuring Chris, make sure to check out SGV Weekly. His most recent episode featured Christine Tran and a discussion of food insecurity and battling Asian American stereotypes.

SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.”

Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn,iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast.