Income

East Los Angeles is moving closer to becoming its own city despite mounting cost concerns and implications of cityhood, Curbed LA reported.  Officials released the final version of the East Los Angeles Comprehensive Fiscal Analysis late last week, which questioned the financial viability of East LA becoming a city.   Recycling raises income of poor households One Occidental College professor's research suggets that recycling bottles and cans could be a significant source of income for poor people given states set their bottle-deposit refunds high enough.

This letter is in response to Roberta Gutierrez's commentary "Higher rents hurt local merchants," printed on Sept. 10. She states that merchants in Glendale should be "begging" the city to support rent control so renters would have more spendable income. I guess Ms. Gutierrez believes that renters who choose to live in Glendale because of its higher standards than other cities, and can afford to pay open-market rent, will not spend any money here. I think just opposite happens: The higher the income, the more spending locally.

Darleene Barrientos IHOP Corp. closed five of its 32 company-operated restaurants Thursday as the company reported second-quarter income dropped 60%. Executives of the Glendale-based restaurant chain said the dip in income and the closures were all expected as it shifts away from financing new franchises to a more traditional economic model in which franchise owners pay for their restaurant's development. IHOP will also reacquire four franchised restaurants and close three of them.

Runaway film Foto-Kem Industries, Inc. v. Wins Income Group LLC, Case No. EC 050226 When a company spends many hours working on a commissioned project, it expects to get paid. But that wasn’t the outcome for Foto-Kem Industries, Inc. The company, which processes film, signed an agreement with Wins Income Group LLC to prepare footage for a film entitled “C ME Dance.” The film is about a teenage girl who has big-city aspirations to become a dancer with the Pittsburgh ballet.

Free tax return service offered The AARP is offering volunteers to complete income tax returns for residents at two local locations. The service is free and will be available for middle- and low-income taxpayers and especially for those older than 60. No affiliation with the association is necessary, but taxpayers must bring their income tax returns, social security or identification cards, and all income documents, including W-2 forms...

This is written by an "old and poor" Glendalian, who mistakenly voted for Bob Yousefian. I did not care for the remarks you made as quoted in the News-Press. Just because you can bleed the city of Glendale for an obscene amount of money, it doesn't set your up as a person who can be so judgmental. Some day, if you are fortunate, you will be considered "old" and, hopefully, you will have more than poverty-level income to live on. Some of us "old" people have had our income eroded by inflation and misfortunes and have no way to make it up now. Show more compassion for those who aren't as lucky as you. RUTH ANDERSON Glendale

Robert Chacon A federal program that provides financial assistance to low-income families is not meeting the needs of some residents in the city, so city officials tonight will consider whether to drop the program in favor of another one. Under the Handy Workers Assistance Program, some residents can receive up to $5,000 for home improvements such as new roofing, windows, doors, paint, locks, water-saving shower heads...

Robert Chacon Residents who qualify are eligible for up to $5,000 to make home improvements courtesy of the city's Community Development Block Grant program. La Canada Flintridge has $72,000 available for the programs beginning July 1, the start of the coming fiscal year. Titled the Handy Worker Assistance Program, the grant has been largely unused for the past two years, mainly because the city canceled its contract with the company that did community outreach for the program.

Volunteers to help with tax prep AARP Tax Aide Volunteers will be available to help complete income tax forms for low- and middle-income tax-payers from 1 to 4 p.m. each Monday until April 9 at Sparr Heights Community Center, 1613 Glencoe Ave., Glendale. The service is free. Tax-form preparation will also be available from 1 to 4 p.m. every Wednesday until April 11 at the Montrose Library, 2465 Honolulu Ave., Montrose. For more information, call Sparr Heights Community Center at (818)

GLENDALE — Pelanconi residents today are once again set to air their long-held opposition to a planned residential complex on Grandview Avenue that some say has no place in their Northwest Glendale neighborhood. The city’s Redevelopment Agency is slated to discuss new plans for the complex, to be located at 1015 Grandview Ave., after residents complained that the initial design of 300 units in a six-story unit would not fit in a community with smaller, single-family homes and nearby Pelanconi Park.

For Ascencia, Glendale's largest homeless services provider, the end of redevelopment could mean an annual loss of $50,000 through 2015. Ascencia has a contract with Glendale's Redevelopment Agency for $50,000 each fiscal year through 2015 to help fund an emergency housing program. But with redevelopment agencies dissolved under a state-imposed plan, Executive Director Natalie Profant Komuro said she's not counting on the money. “It's a serious loss of money and we're going to need to figure out how to fill the gap,” she said.

Strong performances at Walt Disney Co. 's domestic theme parks and by Pixar , Marvel, ESPN and ABC ," Disney President and Chief Executive Bob Iger told analysts. Before Disney reported its results, media analysts said they would be watching advertising trends at ESPN, the powerhouse cable sports network that Morgan Stanley estimates contributes about 8% of the company's revenue. Continue reading > > -- Dawn C. Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times Photo: Visitors to Walt Disney Co.'s California Adventure theme park in Anaheim take in the "Ariel's Undersea Adventure" ride.

A Glendale preschool center closed its doors for the second time in three months on Friday in what could represent another disruption in service for low-income families with few child care options. Staff members were packing up and clearing out classrooms Friday at the Riverdale Head Start center in the 300 block of Riverdale Drive. The program is required to vacate the site by Dec. 31, said Kenneth Wolfe, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start.

It came down to the wire, but Daylight Adult Day Health Care Center in Glendale will remain open and continue serving hundreds of low-income clients after its network reached a settlement with the state over Medi-Cal payments. Without the settlement - reached after advocates for the disabled and elderly filed a court motion this summer seeking to prevent planned funding cuts - Daylight and other centers that are part of the state's Adult Day Health Care program would have closed on Dec. 1 because they would no longer have been eligible for Medi-Cal benefits.

Walt Disney Co. reported improved fourth-quarter earnings, buoyed by gains at Disney Channel and ESPN and at the Burbank company's theme parks. The entertainment giant reported net income of $1.08 billion for the quarter ending Oct. 1, a jump of 30% compared with a year earlier. Revenue also rose 7% to $10.4 billion.  Disney's media networks group, which includes the ABC television network and cable channels, continues to be a profit engine for Disney. Media networks posted operating income of $1.4 billion, a gain of 20% from a year earlier.

Hundreds of low-income families are scrambling to find child care after a Pasadena-based social service agency announced the temporary closure of 10 local Head Start centers. “I don't have anybody to take care of her,” Alina Babakhanians said Friday as she dropped her daughter off at a Head Start site on Glendale Avenue. “Maybe I am going to lose my job, maybe not.” The Center for Community and Family Services, a longtime Head Start administrator, announced Thursday that it was relinquishing its contract with the federally funded preschool program.

East Los Angeles is moving closer to becoming its own city despite mounting cost concerns and implications of cityhood, Curbed LA reported.  Officials released the final version of the East Los Angeles Comprehensive Fiscal Analysis late last week, which questioned the financial viability of East LA becoming a city.   Recycling raises income of poor households One Occidental College professor's research suggets that recycling bottles and cans could be a significant source of income for poor people given states set their bottle-deposit refunds high enough.

In a rare move, Glendale Water & Power has put a piece of property that housed an unused electrical substation up for sale. The 30,000-square-foot property bordered by homes at 3445 Altura Avenue in the northern part of the city was put on the auction block on Tuesday at starting price of $600,000, but there were no takers. “Everybody's kind of looking for the coins in the couch cushion,” said Kevin Todd, a project manager for Glendale Water & Power. After no bites on the property on Tuesday, Todd said he was unsure what next steps were, but officials will likely take another look at the price and consider a possible reduction.

Faced with a mandated 40% pay cut to get in line with a state cap on compensation for serving on the local redevelopment agency, City Council members on Tuesday said they wanted to partially offset their income loss. The pay cut was triggered after Glendale's population dropped below 200,000, according to figures from the state Department of Finance. Under state law, that drop limits redevelopment compensation for council members to $120 a month. Council members have each been paid $1,400 a month for their work on the agency since 2002 because at the time, the city was above the population threshold.

The Glendale Police Department's thinly-staffed Financial Crimes unit received a county grant this week to help investigate real estate fraud, which is on a rise in Glendale, officials said. The Los Angeles County Fraud Prosecution Program awarded an $189,934 grant to the unit. The money will be used to pay for an additional detective who will be dedicated to investigating real estate fraud cases. “We have seen in an increase in Section 8 housing fraud this year,” Glendale Police Lt. Susan Hayn said.