Pictured: John McDannel, from his website campaign for United Airlines president.
The Altadena Town Council tabled a motion to endorse a sign on the bridge at Altadena Drive and New York Drive that would commemorate 9/11.
John McDannel, a Kinneloa Mesa resident, former military pilot and retired pilot for United Airlines, has embarked on a several-year crusade to turn the stretch of New York Drive between Altadena Drive and Sierra Madre Boulevard into a tribute to the victims of 9/11. The ambitious project has already borne fruit, with the medians turned from hardscape to native plants, crowned by 180 trees he has personally planted and watered. His plans include turning the Eaton Wash Dam area into a park where Pasadena can move all of its war memorials. His project has been endorsed by multiple service organizations and he's received considerable help from the city of Pasadena.
While it's a project in Pasadena, a potential bump in the road involves a monument sign to appear on the median around the Eaton Wash bridge, on the Altadena border. McDannel wants signs on either end of that stretch of New York Drive to tell drivers it's a 9/11 tribute. However, Altadena has been looking at the bridge location to put in a "Welcome to Altadena" monument. Los Angeles County has agreed to put "Welcome to Altadena" monuments at various entrances to town, although no design has been agreed to. And the median can only hold one sign.
Town councilwoman Diane Marcussen, who represents that census tract, said that, while she was "all for a project to memorialize 9/11, I am extemely concerned about the design of the sign being the same as what we’re going to do in the rest of Altadena." For homes in Altadena with a 91104 zip code and Pasadena mailing addresses, "it's tough enough to be identified with Altadena," she said.
One option was presented was to have a sign with "Welcome to Altadena" facing westbound drivers, leaving the area, and 9/11 memorial language for the drivers entering the area.
The council tabled the motion, pending further study.
McDannel comes by his 9/11 interest personally: he had flown the plane that flew into the south tower weeks earlier, and knew the pilot who was killed in the disaster. He had landed another plane in Richmond, VA that day, and drove straight through to New York -- and past the damaged Pentagon -- to look for his future son-in-law, who had worked in that tower and went missing (he ended up being safe).
McDannel was also Ronald Reagan's personal pilot during the 1980 presidential campaign, and held a parallel career as a banker for Trans World Bank Corp., which was bought in 1998 by Glendale Federal Savings bank.
McDannel apparently campaigned to be named United's CEO shotly after retirement in in 2001.
McDannel's website:
http://members.cox.net/johnmcdannel/index.htm
A profile of McDannel by Larry Wilson of the Pasadena Star News:
