Funding

With its federal grant funding cut by 35%, a nonprofit after-school program has shut down and returned $23,000 to Glendale. The program, Club Jam, operated out of Grandview Presbyterian Church but closed this summer because it couldn't absorb a $13,000 reduction in federal grant funding that's parceled out by the city, according to a city report released this week. Glendale officials charged with distributing millions of dollars in Community Development Block Grant funding faced drastic cuts from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this year.

The ongoing upgrade of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena has hit a snag after officials disclosed a funding gap of $37.6 million. Rose Bowl officials said on Saturday that they may have to postpone about $14-million worth of work and may seek a loan of $28.6 million to solve the shortfall. Pasadena City Councilman Victor Gordo, who is also president of the Rose Bowl Operating Co., said at a meeting Saturday that negotiations with the Tournament of Roses and UCLA are ongoing to determine what work may be postponed.

City officials on Wednesday embarked upon a series of public outreach meetings to explain the need for higher electricity rates. Instead, they found themselves defending the transfer of millions of dollars from the utility to Glendale's coffers - a move critics say artificially pushes rates up. Glendale Water & Power is seeking a 14.7% electricity rate increase over four years, starting with a 3% bump in 2013, citing the need to boost revenues...

Glendale and Burbank have been awarded nearly $900,000 to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety around school sites, the latest wave of grant money aimed at addressing local traffic congestion and the dangers it poses to students. The combined amount was announced by the California Department of Transportation last week as part of $48.5 million in grants to be filtered via the Safe Routes to School Program that will fund 139 projects up and down the state. The city of Glendale was awarded $449,200 to improve sidewalks, and install crosswalks, bike racks and pavement markings around Balboa, Verdugo Woodlands, R.D. White and Dunsmore elementary schools.

The state Senate voted to fund California's ambitious high-speed rail project on Friday, handing a major victory to Gov. Jerry Brown and the Obama administration. The $8-billion legislation will fund the project's first stretch, covering 130 miles from Madera to Bakersfield. The project had become increasingly controversial as Democratic senators from around San Francisco and Los Angeles asked why construction was was set to start with a 130-mile stretch in the Central Valley.

As Glendale nears the end of its $70-million smart grid project, officials say they're out of money and need more time. City officials said this week they have asked the U.S. Department of Energy for an extension to the March 2013 deadline to finish installing new technology to make the smart meter utility system more efficient. Hitting the deadline was a condition of receiving $20 million in federal stimulus funding for the project. Utility officials had expected to spend $10 million on smart grid improvements this fiscal year, which started July 1, but as part of a stripped-down budget with minimal capital improvements, the City Council approved only $450,000 for that project, officials said at a recent Glendale Water & Power Commission meeting.

In the ongoing back-and-forth over the legality - or even prudence - of transferring revenues from Glendale's municipal utility to the city's own coffers to help pay for public services, it may help to distill the spat into a set of simple truisms. First, Glendale has been consistently hampered in its ability to raise property taxes or assessments by state voters, who have passed proposition after proposition that neuter the taxing powers of municipal governments. That has left Glendale with few options for generating the kind of revenues needed to support and serve its population, which has grown dramatically in the decades since some of these state-level constraints were put in place.

Even though Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers failed this week to reach a deal on public worker pensions, the Legislature may be ready to approve billions of dollars in spending on high-speed rail and related projects. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) told reporters on Tuesday that lawmakers would vote on the funding this week. Legislative approval would be a victory for Brown, who has championed high-speed rail despite uniform opposition from Republicans and scattered concerns among Democrats.

Seven Glendale schools will be outfitted with solar panels during the summer, which district officials say should save millions of dollars in utility costs in the coming decades. The schools include Clark Magnet and Crescenta Valley high schools, Rosemont Middle School and Keppel, Columbus, Mountain Avenue and Monte Vista elementary schools. The $7.2-million project will be paid for with funds from Measure S, a $270-million school bond passed by local voters in April 2011. “This is a fiscally and environmentally responsible way to leverage bond dollars for long-term general fund savings,” school board member Greg Krikorian said in a statement.

City Manager Scott Ochoa went before the Glendale Power & Water Commission on Thursday to defend annual multimillion-dollar transfers from the utility's electric fund to the city's General Fund, which some residents have complained leads to artificially high rates. The city plans to transfer $21 million from the electric fund in its upcoming fiscal budget, and an advisory committee has been formed to look at possibly increasing the electric rate by Sept. 1. “The City Council is concerned about the transfer,” Ochoa said.