by Laura Monteros
At the end of Friday night’s Chamber of Commerce awards ceremony, C. Jake Truman told a story about her Holliston Avenue neighbor who had to go to Florida for the launch of the Mars Science Lab Curiosity. When he returned, the first thing he said to Jake was that the loneliness had been terrible, but he had one thing going for him: Every day, he checked in with Timothy Rutt’s Altadenablog and Bill Westphal’s Altadena Weathercam.Pictured: from left, Rita Hadjimanoukian of Supv. Antonovich's office, Bill Westphal, Citizen of the Year, and Timothy Rutt, publisher, Altadenablog, Business of the Year. Photo by Whitney Westphal.
At the top of the list of community needs, particularly in the foothills where we are so affected by Mother Nature, are news and weather. But who speaks for Altadena? The answer came in the awards handed out by the Altadena Chamber of Commerce at its 88th Annual Awards. Weatherman Bill Westphal received the 2011 Citizen of the Year award and Altadenablog founder, proprietor, and head reporter Timothy Rutt received the first annual Business of the Year award.
“If there are two people we can depend on in this community, it’s these two,” Dr. Sandra Thomas of the Town Council said. Chamber president Inger Miller said, “I think you are awesome to our community!”
Carolyn Seitz, last year’s Citizen of the Year honoree, presented the awards. She said that she was honored to be able to present two awards for the first time, and that it was symbolic of the way the community of Altadena is beginning to pull together.
“For many years, this was a community of people who whined and complained,” she said with a smile. Westphal and Rutt, she said, are “people who stand up for this community day after day—not because they are on a soapbox, but because they care about this community.
“Bill volunteers countless hours for the Sheriff’s department,” Seitz continued. She pointed to his nights patrolling the community as a Volunteer on Patrol, working road closures so the deputies can be doing other things, training volunteers, and working with the Sheriff’s Support Group of Altadena.
Westphal’s first words in accepting the award were, “How about the weather, huh? It’s sunny and warm in January. I arranged that.” He declined to take credit for the wind. As someone who is usually taking pictures, he said he felt awkward being on the other side of the camera—and wearing a suit and tie instead of his usual shorts and Hawaiian shirt. He quietly suggested that perhaps next year’s theme could be tweaked.
In addition to his work with the Sheriff’s station, Westphal operates a weather station on his roof as part of the KNBC WeatherNet program and works as a manager at AT&T. “I am honored being Citizen of the Year,” he said.
“Usually, when it’s time to nominate the Citizen of the Year,” Seitz commented, “we get a lot of nominees. For 2011, there were several nominations submitted, but every one of them was for Bill Westphal.” Turning to Westphal, she said, “If you wondered ever if people in this community care about what you do, there’s the validation.”
Westphal mentioned fellow honoree Rutt in his comments, saying that “he filled the void in that the media long missed, that conventional media can’t or won’t cover.”
Seitz affirmed that observation. She said that she and Monica Hubbard had talked years ago about the only coverage of Altadena being bad news. “We wanted to figure out some way for good news about Altadena to be told. Tim gave the opportunity to give good news about Altadena.
“Then the Station Fire occurred.”
If ever there was a watershed event for Altadenans, it was the Station Fire of 2009. Again and again at Friday’s ceremony, the unwavering commitment to Altadena that the two honorees provided during those long days and nights was cited with deep gratitude.
“We looked to Altadenablog to find out, as well as to Bill Westphal’s weather cam,” Seitz said. “Tim Rutt picked up that ball in a big way and took us a major league forward.”
Rutt responded, “It is a singular honor—prideful and also humbling—to be the first Business of the Year. It’s an honor to share this with Bill Westphal.
“One of the most important things we have are stories,” he said. “I’ve told stories all my life as a journalist and as a person. They change from beginning to end.” He said that despite the millennia of turmoil in the Near East and disappearance of many nations, one people, the Judeans, survived, because no matter where they went they took their Torah, their stories.
He recalled working as an interim pastor fresh out of seminary. One of the parishioners told him a story about a woman in the congregation who had committed suicide, and how radically that had affected the church. “This was an important story to the community, it helped define their identity. By sharing it with me, it brought me into that community, too.”
Rutt had lived in Altadena for five years when he realized that no one was telling Altadena’s stories. Not the Pasadena Star-News, not other media. “How can people find out what’s going on here?” he asked. He picked up bits and pieces from the bulletin board at The Coffee Gallery, the Altadena Library information table, and Bryan’s Cleaners marquee, but that wasn’t enough.
“I didn’t know what to do about it and I didn’t think I was the one to do it,” he said, until he saw the success friends in the Seattle area was having with a local news website they started. “One day it came to me, after dropping off my kids at school, that we could have it all in one place.”
In October, 2007, Altadenablog was started as a small enterprise. It was the Station Fire that kicked it over, he said. “It made us into one community.”
Rutt did not run around taking pictures of firemen or smoke. He kept the blog up and open for people who had to evacuate and didn’t know what to do with their horses or pets, and who needed quickly updated reports on where the inferno was heading. The reporting became grassroots, with residents adding their information lickety-split as the fire moved across the foothills. [This reporter’s son discovered Altadenablog when searching for information on where to take our pets if we had to leave.]
“Television stations didn’t cover it until their towers were in danger,” Rutt said. “This taught me what we could do in terms of community.” It was that very community spirit—and the outcry when he switched out Altadenablog’s Mt. Lowe header for something “jazzier”—that made him decide him to refuse an offer to work for a another, New York CIty-based news organization that was planning to locate in Altadena.
Westphal and Rutt received certificates of honor from Rep. Adam Schiff, State Senator Carol Liu, Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, the Altadena Sheriff’s Station, Altadena Chamber of Commerce, Altadena Town Council, and the Sheriff’s Support Group of Altadena.
There was some competition among the presenters as to who had the fanciest award. Rita Hadjimanoukian, presenting for Antonovich after the national and state dignitaries, quipped, “I have the fanciest certificate of all!” But Capt. Steven McLean of the Altadena Sheriff’s Station remarked as he handed the award to Westphal, “You might have noticed the wood frame.”
Capt. McLean said, “Tim, this is probably the only time I will give a scroll to a journalist. I haven’t done it in 32 years.” He credited both Westphal for his law enforcement volunteerism and Rutt for keeping the community informed for helping to bring Altadena’s crime rate to the second lowest in the county. (Westphal noted that the lowest crime rate is in Avalon where “nothing happens.”) Capt. McLean also underscored their commitment to their families and their strong character and integrity.
In presenting the Town Council certificate, Dr. Thomas commented, “There was some bragging done about plaques. This one is glass.”
Bob Klomburg of SSGA followed by first noting that Westphal is the 11th person from SSGA who has received the Citizen of the Year award, and then saying, “We have a lovely wood-framed certificate. Oh! It’s so heavy!”
Jamie Bissner presented SSGA’s award to Rutt with the words, “You are my new icon.”
Rutt summed up the reason why he and Westphal devote so much time to the community. “We love this work, and we love Altadena,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
