Parks in the City of La Mirada, as well as other communities
in Los Angeles County and throughout California, are playing
a key role in the battle to reduce the alarming rise in numbers
of unfit and obese children and adults.
In 1898, officials from 13 cities came together to form the
League of California Cities. They traveled by train and ferry,
riding on 55 miles of double track cable car lines operated
under 10 separate franchises in the city of San Francisco,
and they bought a choice steak dinner at the Palace Hotel
for a dollar.
A bright beautiful Los Angeles day contrasted recently with some bleak and stunning news -— weight gain by adults in Los Angeles County in the past eight years has been 44 million pounds. This is a gain of six pounds for the average person with one in every five adults in the county now considered obese, according to a Los Angeles County Department of Health survey.
For 12 years, the City of Glendale’s Neighborhood Services
Department has operated successful environmental education
programs in the city’s elementary schools. Continuing this
education at the middle school level was the next obvious step to
maintaining environmentally sustainable behavior in Glendale
youth. Neighborhood Services needed to develop a program that
would motivate junior high school students to take civic
responsibility for their environment.
In the early 1990s, the City of La Habra was experiencing rising
numbers of drive-by shootings and homicides. The city
ranked second in Orange County for gang-related shootings.
The increased violence was attributed to several factors,
including a lack of organized recreation programs for youth and a
recent influx of gang members from outside the area. In
response, a concerned group of community members formed a
task force to work with the city to address the problem.
Located along San Francisco Bay on the peninsula between San
Francisco and San Jose, Foster City is a growing community of
28,803 residents, offering the benefits of metropolitan living
with small town, neighborly appeal.
Our city recently experienced an embarrassing scandal when one of
our department heads circumvented our contracting procedures to
steer a contract to a friend. To make matters worse, there were
cost overruns and the product that was ultimately delivered
didn’t fully meet the city’s needs. The media had a field day,
accusing the city of cronyism and misuse of taxpayer resources.
