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Glendale: Crossing stays open, mayor says

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  • Glendale: Crossing stays open, mayor says

    Glendale News Press
    28 Sept 2005
    Crossing stays open, mayor says
    Council members express ire at newspaper article alleging racial motivation
    for proposed closure.
    By Fred Ortega, News-Press and Leader

    GLENDALE CITY HALL -- Mayor Rafi Manoukian joined a majority of council
    members Tuesday night in opposing a proposed closure of Chevy Chase Drive at
    the Metrolink tracks, and he chastised a local Latino newspaper for alleging
    that the planned road closure was racially motivated.
    Noting that two other council members have expressed opposition to a plan to
    use cul-de-sacs on Chevy Chase near the site of last January's deadly
    Metrolink accident to close off the crossing, Manoukian told the audience at
    Tuesday night's council meeting that the proposal is practically dead in the
    water.

    "I don't see this happening," Manoukian said. "[Councilmen Frank Quintero
    and Dave Weaver] are on record saying they are against it, and I am saying
    today that I will not support it."
    Manoukian then mentioned an article that appeared Sunday in the Los Angeles
    Spanish language newspaper La Opinion.
    Headlined "Glendale attempts to isolate Latinos," the article painted the
    controversy in stark racial tones, quoting Atwater Village residents who
    claimed the proposed closure was an effort by Glendale officials to keep
    their Latino residents out of Glendale.
    It also alleged strained relations between Glendale's Armenian and Los
    Angeles' Latino populations.
    "To my great sadness I saw the article in La Opinion which described the
    situation as a conflict between two ethnic groups," Manoukian said. "We just
    went to Washington to lobby for money for an emergency communications system
    for the whole region, not just for Glendale."
    The allegations in the La Opinion article also shocked Councilman Bob
    Yousefian.
    "I have no idea where La Opinion got its information, but they need to
    apologize and write a retraction," Yousefian said. "Their accusations are
    beyond belief. I was at the site of the [Metrolink] carnage, and our rescue
    people who pulled the victims out of the wreckage were not looking to see
    whether they were black, brown, red or any other color."
    At a meeting last week that drew 500 angry Atwater Village residents,
    railing against the proposed closure, there was no mention of race.
    Meeting organizer Lenore Solis, a Glendale Water and Power commissioner,
    said she went to great lengths to keep people focused on the safety and
    access issues raised by the plan.
    "I told people that this is not what it is about, to not make it about
    Armenians against Latinos," she said. "This is a safety issue and a traffic
    situation, and nothing else. Both the writer at La Opinion and a reporter
    for Telemundo who interviewed me tried to make it a racial thing."
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