Community Leaders

Local community leaders - everyone from law enforcement officers and business owners to elected officials - temporarily assumed new responsibilities on Tuesday: school principal. Principal for a Day, sponsored by the Glendale Educational Foundation, meant new leadership at 29 Glendale Unified schools for several hours. Now in its 20th year, the program is designed to educate community leaders about the complexities of managing a school site, Executive Director Susan Hunt said.

Members of the Glendale Latino Assn. make any event a party. The tone of their annual Community Awards Luncheon was fun with just the right amount of earnestness. On Thursday more than 200 members and guests gathered at the Oakmont Country Club to honor community leaders. Glendale Mayor Frank Quintero offered greetings from the city. Quintero is the founder and past president of the Glendale Latino Assn. His remarks were followed by the introduction of VIP's by Past President Mercy Velazquez.

The Montrose-Verdugo City Chamber of Commerce recognized community leaders and installed new members at a mid-January dinner at the La Cañada Flintridge Country Club. Award recipients include Jenkins Properties Management as business of the year; Crescenta Valley Rotary as organization of the year; Mathew Matti of Re/Max Tri City Realty as business person of the year; retired Glendale firefighter Mark Whipp as peace officer of the year; Carolyn Bowman as educator of the year, and Chris Waldheim as volunteer of the year.

BURBANK — The leaders of tomorrow got a chance to meet with the leaders of today Wednesday at the 22nd annual Youth Leadership Conference, held at the Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center. "This is an opportunity to engage our future leaders, being our students, with those currently in leadership roles," said event chairman Sunder Ramani, a board member for Glendale Character and Ethics Project, the nonprofit, volunteer organization that sponsored the event. This year's conference focused on ethics in sports.

A Noise Within's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" that we saw last night is another outstanding production by an outstanding theater company. Along with many others, I suspect, I was both disappointed and a bit miffed when it seemed to abruptly abandon Glendale. But we should put such feelings aside and welcome it back to Glendale because such a talented group would be a great community asset for both its remarkable entertainment and its community outreach. I certainly hope the city along with other community leaders will do all in their power to get A Noise Within back to Glendale.

Several foothill area youth were honored at a luncheon Wednesday hosted by the Glendale Youth Alliance. Alexis Osborn from La Cañada High School , Christopher Mangasarian and Sasoun Ochiyan from Clark Magnet High School were part of the organization?s 14th annual ?Employees of Tomorrow? luncheon to celebrate fourteen years of providing jobs for Glendale kids. Osborn and Mangasarian both work for Assemblymember Paul Krekorian as interns and are being paid by the Glendale Youth Alliance.

Alecia Foster NORTHWEST GLENDALE -- Balboa Elementary School Principal Lou Stewart called the debut of a reading program at her school Friday a success. Everyone from school board members to the mayor of Glendale spent the morning reading to groups of students at the school. "We had lots of community leaders we turned into community readers," Stewart said. A total of 20 community leaders turned out for the PTA-sponsored event, including Mayor Dave Weaver, Supt.

Groups advocate healthy eating Students at Cerritos Elementary School will get a crash course in nutrition Thursday, as a selection of health and wellness organizations will set up booths to advocate healthy eating and physical activity. ?Eat Right? is the theme of the event, where children will have a chance to visit booths from the California Dairy Council and the American Cancer Society, along with tables promoting agriculture, fruits and vegetables, and cooking. The event is a collaboration between the Glendale Unified School District?

Honesty, integrity and fairness were among the major themes local students and community leaders discussed Wednesday at the 28th annual Youth, Leadership and the Future Conference. Around 100 students from the Glendale, Burbank and La Cañada Flintridge school districts joined local business and civic leaders at Glendale Community College for the annual program organized by the Character and Ethics Project. Students who participate are mostly juniors and seniors from public high schools in the tri-city area, according to Susan Hunt, executive director of Glendale Educational Foundation and co-chair for the conference.

John Krikorian, publisher of Business Life magazine and for many years a leader in the community, died early Saturday morning from heart failure. He was 80 years old. In late 2011, Krikorian suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed at a public ceremony hosted by the Glendale Fire Department. He was there to accept a “Service Above Self” award for community involvement. Firefighters and paramedics rushed to perform CPR and Krikorian recovered. “Our family is so grateful for what the Glendale Fire Department was able to do for this extra year and a half of life,” said his son, Glendale Unified School Board member Greg Krikorian.

Members of the Glendale Latino Assn. make any event a party. The tone of their annual Community Awards Luncheon was fun with just the right amount of earnestness. On Thursday more than 200 members and guests gathered at the Oakmont Country Club to honor community leaders. Glendale Mayor Frank Quintero offered greetings from the city. Quintero is the founder and past president of the Glendale Latino Assn. His remarks were followed by the introduction of VIP's by Past President Mercy Velazquez.

Honesty, integrity and fairness were among the major themes local students and community leaders discussed Wednesday at the 28th annual Youth, Leadership and the Future Conference. Around 100 students from the Glendale, Burbank and La Cañada Flintridge school districts joined local business and civic leaders at Glendale Community College for the annual program organized by the Character and Ethics Project. Students who participate are mostly juniors and seniors from public high schools in the tri-city area, according to Susan Hunt, executive director of Glendale Educational Foundation and co-chair for the conference.

The Crescenta Valley dog park - officially opened to the public on Friday - cost $645,000 in voter-approved Proposition A money. But it's hard to put a price tag on the community activism and grass-roots lobbying that really made it a reality. The prize? La Crescenta got the first off-leash dog park owned and operated by Los Angeles County. On Friday, dogs off all sizes got to share in the benefits of the dogged perseverance of Crescenta Valley community leaders over the course of more than five years to bring the facility to fruition.

When flags representing Mexico, South Korea, eco-justice and gays and lesbians were stolen from St. Luke's of the Mountains Episcopal Church - leaving just the American flag standing - the message was conspicuous and unwanted. So on Sunday, as community leaders gathered to reinstall the flags after weeks of fundraising, the message to the perpetrators was just as clear: “You brought the community back together again,” one said. Speaking to the crowd during the dedication on Sunday, church Vicar Bryan Jones said his congregation offered up donations to replace the flags the day after the flags were stolen on May 19. “They left one flag standing and that was an American flag,” Jones said.

Local gays and lesbians on Wednesday applauded President Obama's public support of same-sex marriage, calling the announcement a pivotal moment in their fight for equality. In explaining the “evolution” of his view on gay marriage over the last several years, Obama told ABC's Robin Roberts that “at a certain point, I've just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” His statements in support of same-sex marriage were the first for a sitting U.S. president.

Sitting down to an exam never looked so fun Monday at Horace Mann Elementary School, where public officials and community leaders descended on the campus for a standardized testing kickoff celebration. “We are trying to tell the kids that this is a celebration of their learning,” Principal Rosa Alonso said as she weaved through the crowd doling out high fives. It is testing season for California public school districts. Horace Mann students, like thousands of others in grades 2 through 11 across Glendale Unified, are sitting for the California Standards Tests - commonly known as the CSTs - that assess proficiency in subjects including English, math, science and history.

Local community leaders - everyone from law enforcement officers and business owners to elected officials - temporarily assumed new responsibilities on Tuesday: school principal. Principal for a Day, sponsored by the Glendale Educational Foundation, meant new leadership at 29 Glendale Unified schools for several hours. Now in its 20th year, the program is designed to educate community leaders about the complexities of managing a school site, Executive Director Susan Hunt said.

As the massive crackdown on Armenian Power and its alleged associates this week showed, gangs have changed with the times. The impact of gangs on local communities cannot simply be measured in street muggings, burglaries, tagging and the like — not when they have access to technology that can drain the economy and personal finances. As economic pains push Burbank and Glendale to consider cuts to many social services, including support for after-school programs that serve as important outlets for the youth, we as a community should consider if we’re really saving anything at all. Either we pay for programs that push teens to be the best they can be, or, as this week showed, we pay an even steeper tab further down the road after some youth fall prey to the overtures of enterprising gang members seeking to maintain or increase their ranks.