Marshall Allen
LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- Mayor Dave Spence was lobbied hard by Hogg's
Hollow preschoolers Friday.
The 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds had come to City Hall with an agenda:
getting Spence to do something about the cars making illegal U-turns in
their school crosswalk. Hogg's Hollow is on the Foothill Intermediate
School campus at 4490 Cornishon Avenue.
The 24 children had an agenda and they were organized. Each child
carried a protest sign with "No U-turns" colored on one side, and a photo
of a car making an illegal U-turn on the other.
"They certainly had their issue together," Spence said.
After settling into chairs in the council chambers, 4-year-old Dean
Wyrzykowski, the group's spokesman, stood to make his presentation.
Using wooden blocks, a toy car, and action figures, Dean demonstrated
how a car making a U-turn can run over a person in a crosswalk.
"We need you to do something about it because the cars'll run over
someone and they will get killed," Dean told the mayor.
Spence listened to the children's complaints and then spent some time
teaching the kids about city procedure. He also let the kids sit in the
City Council's chairs and talk in the microphones, then led them on a
tour of City Hall. The children visited City Manager Jerry Fulwood, who
looked at their photographic evidence -- 10 pictures of illegal U-turns
taken in just one hour -- and directed city staff to look into the
situation.
Spence said it's likely the city will put in a "No U-turn" sign in
front of the school. He and Fulwood will go to the school to report their
action to the children this week.
The school's director, Rose Hogg, said the children had the idea to
see someone about the illegal U-turns, and she directed them to the
mayor.
"We get the kids involved in what they would do in real life," she
said.
