Pasadenans for a Livable City receive the 10th Annual Thorny Rose! March 18, 2011

It’s official! The 10th Order of the Thorny Rose has spoken. This year’s recipient, Pasadenans for a Livable City, has certainly earned its thorny nod -having taken on the City of Pasadena and a powerful developer -and won! The Thorny Rose Award is presented annually at the Pasadena Doo Dah Parade to an individual or organization that has created discomfort or agitation in the community (even sometimes for a good cause).
The object of the PLC wrath was the proposed IDS Playhouse Plaza. As initially planned, the IDS Playhouse Plaza would stand six stories tall and take up a massive 160,000 square feet at the southeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and El Molino Avenue, right smack dab in the middle of the Playhouse District-much of which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
After the city council okayed the behemoth project, despite the fact that the Planning Commission recommended against it, Pasadenans for a Livable City went on full-throttle attack. Then the first death knell came when Councilwoman Margaret McAustin, who voted against the project, spoke right into the microphone during the council meeting and called it a “slap in the face” to Pasadena’s zoning and design guidelines that call for new development projects to be compatible with their architectural surroundings.
Pasadenans for a Livable City, along with Pasadena Heritage, filed a lawsuit to stop the IDS Playhouse Plaza shortly after the city council’s vote of approval. This was a bold move that signaled the project might be dead in the water. The October 2010 ruling by an L.A. Superior Court judge, who struck down the project in favor of the plaintiffs, was the final nail in the coffin.
As is the tradition for Thorny Rose winners, representatives of Pasadenans for a Livable City will be given an invitation to receive their award in public and be driven along the route of the 34th Pasadena Doo Dah Parade. The unique “Other Parade” takes place on Saturday, April 30th, stepping off at 11:00am at its new Colorado Boulevard location in East Pasadena. The only Thorny Rose awardee to pass up the invitation was Wayne Lusvardi who was the eighth recipient.
While Pasadenans for a Livable City were strongly supported by the anonymous committee of astute social-political observers, there were other strong contenders including Martin Truitt and even some city councilpersons. The prickly honor is bestowed once a year on Pasadena’s most controversial citizen or group of citizens and has been euphemistically called the city’s “biggest pain-in-the-ass award.”
Previous recipients have been former city councilperson Paul Little (twice), Charles Cherniss, Roy Begley, PUSD School Board, Mary Dee Romney, West Pasadena Residents Association, Ann Lau and the Falun Gong, and last year’s winner the Friends of Hahamongna.

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