Although it's been so quiet (compared to recent years) that it almost doesn't seem that way, there actually is going to be an election in just a couple of weeks. That being the case, there will be a candidate's forum this Tuesday night, February 19th, at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers at City Hall (8838 E. Valley Blvd.).

Coming up this week is a series of three Open Houses held by Metro and CalTrans to present the five options planned for study in the Environmental Impact Report on the alternatives for the "710 gap," our long-incomplete freeway. Click here to find out more about how they arrived at the options: http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist07/resources/envdocs/docs/710study/

The office of Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge is holding a memorial ceremony for recently deceased public television personality Huell Howser. It will be held from 4 - 5:15pm on Tuesday, January 15, on the steps of the Griffith Observatory. The Observatory will not be open for this event, so it's strictly an outdoors and parking lot event. No idea who all will be speaking.

There's another e-waste collection event at San Gabriel High School (801 S. Ramona St, San Gabriel, CA 91776). It's this Saturday, 8am - 3pm.

The Garvey Education Association wants to bring back some of the 32 remaining laid off teachers. They went to the table on Monday May 21st agreeing to concessions in order to save the jobs of some of the laid off teachers.

The Garvey Education Association (GEA) will be facilitating a meeting with parents and the community on Tuesday May 29th at 6:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the Parent Education Center at 7423 Newmark Street in Rosemead. (Enter from New Avenue)

The meeting will be a question and answer session. Members of GEA Leadership will be on hand to answer questions from the public.

In spring 2011, Metro held a series of scoping meetings to collect feedback on a large number of potential options to resolve the issue of the SR-710 gap and regional north-south transportation issues. Thanks if you went to one of those and commented. Those responses were used to reduce and refine the list of potential options from 42 to ten.

At the last Board Meeting on May 10th, quietly behind closed doors, the School Board decided to fire two Assistant Superintendents. There are only 4. Of course they won't announce which two of the four are gone. They haven't even told the people who were fired.

I guess it is not just the teachers that cause a threat to Dr. Johnson's power. Half her cabinet is headed out the door on June 30th.