View to a Hill (Just don't look too closely!)

 Fire?  What Fire?

Howdy friends and neighbors of the hills!

Montebello Hills after the fire.

Well folks, I'm starting this post off with a great big sigh of disbelief.

A new edition of the Montebello Chamber of Commerce's "Spotlight on Montebello" arrived in my mailbox this afternoon.  As usual, I was expecting to see another full page ad from Cook Hill Properties LLC praising the dubious "merits" of it's proposed Montebello Hills Specific Plan housing development.  Unfortunately, my expectation was not disappointed.

Cook Hill's latest paid advertisement, "View to a Hill," is on page 15.

It's a pretty straight-forward "before and after" piece of propaganda to say, "You see?  Nothing will change if you let us lop off 100 feet from the top of the highest hills, fill in all the canyons/arroyos, then plant a whole bunch of non-native trees and landscaping!  From these "selected vantage points", everything will look just the same!"

Well ain't that a hoot?!  Yeah riiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!!!

First off

One of the 3 pairs of "before and after" shots wasn't taken in Montebello. Don Bosco Technical Institute is located in ROSEMEAD!  Now I mean no disrespect to the fine City of Rosemead or Don Bosco Tech but why would these folks care about their view of the Montebello Hills?

As a resident of Montebello, the feature that interests me the most about the "after" shot shown in the Don Bosco recreation are the very tall, high power transmission towers running along the ridge of the hills.  This is the first time I've seem them in one of Cook Hill's advertisements!

So what are they? Those towers are part of Southern California Edison's Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project.   Cook Hill has known about this project for a long time and even wrote a letter of concern to the California Public Utilities Commission!

My firm has responsibility for developing a 488+/- acre project in the City of Montebello, owned in fee by Montebello Land Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Plains Exploration & Production Company.  A Southern California Edison easement encumbers approximately 37 +/- acres of our property, and is subject to certain improvements associated with the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project.  Our property lies to the east of the Mesa Substation, along Segment 7, as we currently understand the project.

Because of conflicting information we have been given, we are unclear exactly what modifications to the existing towers will be required, as well as any temporary impacts that might affect the existing Coastal Sage Scrub (CSS) habitat found on site.  Aside from the potential aesthetic impacts of the permanent structures, we are concerned about any health impacts that may be associated with additional voltage on our residential neighborhoods.

Letter dated October 8, 2007.
Norman E. Witt, Jr.
Senior Vice President

Secondly

I noticed something missing from the "after" shot of the intersection of Montebello Blvd and Paramount Blvd.  Where is the traffic light with the left turn signal for Paramount?  Hhhmmmm. 

Lastly

The bottom set of photos shows the view of the hills from Yorktown Avenue at Iguala Street in Racquet Mountain.  What's up with that after shot?  Did somebody pour a couple million gallons of Minoxidil on the Hills?  All those extra, non-native trees marching along the familiar tree-less ridgeline look down right unnatural and, given the recent fire in the hills, all those extra trees also look rather "ominous."

Which brings me back to the reason why I started off this blog entry with a sigh.

Fire?  What fire?

I was more than a mite bit curious about what sorta coverage this edition of the "Spotlight" might give to the recent fire in the Montebello Hills.  I read through the entire 28 page publication and finally, on page 24, I found a paid advertisement from the City of Montebello.

Buried in this paid ad, in teensy weensy print, is the ONLY REFERENCE to the recent fire in the Montebello Hills!!!!!  The information is worth repeating, this time in print folks can actually read:

At approximately 2:48 pm on Monday July 9, 2012, Montebello Fire units were dispatched to a reported fire in the Montebello Hills area by the PXP project.  A large column of smoke was visible to firefighters as they left the station headed for the fire.  First arriving crews found a rapidly growing fire in heavy fuels. A second alarm fire response was requested which brought additional fire units from Downey, Santa Fe Springs, Vernon, Monterey Park and Los Angeles County Fire Departments.  As the fire continued to grow due to the heat of the day, wind, and old vegetative growth, an additional request was made for fire resource that included helicopters and hand crews from the Los Angeles County Fire Department.  There would be 3 more requests for additional equipment and manpower totaling 5 alarms.  After almost 5 hours, firefighters finally had control of the incident but would have many hours of mop-up work ahead to make sure the entire fire was out.

In all, over 200 firefighting personnel were on the scene to battle this blaze.  There were 20 engine companies, 4 water tenders, 2 helicopters, 5 hand crews and 10 chief officers on hand to control this fire.  Assisting the Montebello Fire Department were the following fire agencies:  Los Angeles County, Monterey Park, Downey, Santa Fe Springs, Vernon, San Gabriel, Alhambra, Monrovia, Glendale, Pasadena, Sierra Madre and South Pasadena Fire Departments.

Costco and Von's donated water to the fire crews and the information above was printed as part of their "Thank You" to the fire agencies who risked their own safety to protect the rest of us.

Well, here's a great big "THANK YOU" to Costco, Von's and the unknown author of this report. 

Of course, I can't say enough "THANK YOU's" to the Montebello Fire Department and all the other agencies that came to our rescue that day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another view of the burnt hillsides.

The published news reports of the day never mentioned there was a 5 alarm fire in the Montebello Hills!


Now just sit a spell and let that information sink in a bit.  Don't it just make you feel even more grateful to our firefighters?

So why in blazes didn't ANYBODY at the Montebello Chamber of Commerce feel inclined to write a follow up news story about the fire?  Just who the heck is editing this so-called "publication" anyway????

Shame on you "Spotlight on Montebello!"

Let the "sighing" begin.


Daisy Mae