Economy

Glendale Police officers carried trays of food and poured drinks for a hungry lunch crowd at Damon’s Steakhouse on Wednesday, raising money for the Special Olympics Tri-Valley this summer. Attendees included local business owners, city officials, residents and others whom officers invited to their Tip-A-Cop event at the restaurant to have a meal and donate money to the sports organization, Officer Sue Shine said. Restaurant owner Patrick Campbell offered to donate 20% of the lunch hour earnings to the nonprofit organization, which offers sports to mentally-disabled athletes, she said.

DOWNTOWN — In a term marked by repeated confrontations with City Hall activists, a dampening recession, the Americana at Brand opening and major city land deals, Mayor John Drayman had much ground to cover in his State of the City address Thursday at the Hilton Glendale. In one of his last major public addresses before the City Council picks his successor April 20, Drayman sought to assure hundreds of community leaders at the annual Glendale Chamber of Commerce event that, even in hard economic times, Glendale was a city of resilience through shared responsibility.

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — Against a backdrop of high unemployment rates, crushing deficits and a spiraling economy, hundreds of city leaders gathered early Thursday morning for some inspiration as they wade into an uncertain 2009. As in years past, the 46th annual Glendale Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast offered words of encouragement and solace from Islamic, Jewish and Christian text, Hindu proverbs, and the like. But at a time when reports of hiring freezes, work furloughs, layoffs and deficits are now commonplace, the program this year was heavy on encouragement.

Armando Gutierrez summed up the added meaning of Ash Wednesday for many Catholics this year as he rushed to make it to the midday Mass at Holy Family Catholic Church. “For me, [the recession] is more of a reason to attend,” he said. “If I can serve people who are worse off than me, all the better.” As the crippling recession forces more families below the poverty line and into local food banks and social service programs, many Catholics who marked the start of the Lenten season Wednesday with ash-marked foreheads and pastoral messages of hope said the burdens of economy weighed heavily on their minds this year.

CITY HALL — Two major projects planned for south Glendale are having to navigate the uncertainties of an unstable credit market, but the developers remain committed, officials said. A six-story commercial office building at Los Feliz Road and Gardena Avenue and a five-story mixed-use residential complex across from Glendale Memorial Hospital on South Central Avenue are poised to significantly alter Glendale’s interface with Atwater Village, but tepid lenders and a frozen credit market have turned planning into a delicate dance, a consultant for the two projects said.

CITY HALL — The recession appears to have caught up with the city’s planning-related commissions, all of which have cut back on their meeting schedules recently as caseloads dwindle. Hearings for the Planning Commission, Design Review Boards or city zoning administrator averaged between three and six cases each meeting last year, but many commissions have seen more and more of their meetings canceled due to a lack of business. The Housing Authority hasn’t seen a major case since early December, and that was after three weeks of no new business.

NORTH GLENDALE — State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell rallied with parents and educators at Glenoaks Elementary School on Tuesday, calling on lawmakers to make education a priority and to prevent midyear budget cuts to schools. Speakers at the rally, which included California PTA President Pam Brady and Glendale Unified School District officials, urged parents, students and teachers to implore their local representatives to help keep California from worsening its current ranking in per-pupil funding for education, they said.

GLENDALE — Glendale Community College has seen a surge in students registering for classes in advance of the spring semester, which administrators attribute to the failing economy. Registration was up 24% last week from the same time last year, although Monday’s figure was just 16% higher than eight days prior to the first day of classes in February 2008. The jump in early student enrollment, from 11,712 at the same time in 2008 to 13,591 Monday, is rapidly approaching the college’s limit of 15,500 students, with even obscure courses filling to capacity, said Ricardo Perez, vice president of student services at the college.

GLENDALE — The police department had fewer officers responding to emergency calls last year than neighboring cities, including Los Angeles, Pasadena and Burbank, according to an annual department report. The Glendale Police Department is operating with 264 officers, which is seven fewer than the 2007-08 fiscal year due to budget cuts, according to the department’s 2008 Overview of Statistics and Organization Structure report released Tuesday. The department’s officer-to-residents ratio is 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents, while Burbank’s officer ratio is 1.5 to the same number of residents, Pasadena’s is 1.8 and Los Angeles’ officer ratio is 2.6, according to the report.

The Redpath family may not turn out to be the Newsmakers of the Year for Glendale or Burbank, but at the moment, they certainly look like the bravest bunch around. The family of four made plans last summer to give up their rented Glendale home, the father resigned from his job as a supervising sound editor for Warner Bros., and they will spend a year traveling through Europe with their two elementary-school-aged children. When they made the decision the economy wasn’t exactly looking rosy, and in the months since, the stock market has tumbled, companies have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, and the current and former presidents have raced to cap the damage.