Arroyo Seco

Let's begin by agreeing that the Los Angeles City Council's Rules and Elections Committee is not exactly Comedy Central. That's not saying committee Chairman Eric Garcetti isn't a host with a sense of humor. He is. But hey, it's Rules and Elections. Short of passing out whoopee cushions and nachos, you can only do so much. But this Wednesday's meeting may be different because the committee is going to discuss instant runoff voting.

LINGERING fans of the 1970s tennis boom have an opportunity to experience a vanishing scene at the new Arroyo Seco Racquet Club, just off the 110 Freeway in South Pasadena. Several of the courts at the complex, constructed in 1976, have been converted from Carter administration green and red to contemporary blue and green. It's a clear sign that change is in the air -- even if a faint whiff of catgut and disco remains.

Hmmm, let's see: a left-handed quarterback who sees a larger purpose than football in this life, and the one (we hope) after. Except: he may not have the arm to make it big in the NFL and runs too much, which is going to get him killed at the next level. Also: ministers to the less fortunate, is stubborn as a mule, leads with his head, constantly needs grass clumps picked out of face mask, treats body like piñata. And: so hyper-competitive he'd cry at his locker for an hour after a crushing defeat, then collect himself and responsibly face the media.

Go ahead, say it. Matt Barkley won't care. Text it, tweet it or post it on a message board: A team with a true freshman starting at quarterback can't win a Bowl Championship Series title. College football fans and pundits began arguing the point the moment USC Coach Pete Carroll announced that Barkley would start at quarterback this season. Those who say the Trojans will falter? "Haters and motivators," Barkley says, grinning. "That's what drives us." As USC prepares for Saturday's opener against San Jose State at the Coliseum, neither Carroll nor Barkley is worrying at this point about playing for a national championship.

The family of a man who died after losing control of his car and plummeting into a flood-control ditch is suing the city and county of Los Angeles for not building a barrier along the freeway he was driving on. Ernesto Beltran's family members say in their wrongful-death suit that the city and county acted negligently when they did not install a barrier along the stretch of the 110 Freeway where he slid into the Arroyo Seco channel. An attorney for Beltran's widow says state transit officials recommended that a safety barrier be constructed more than a year before the 46-year-old's death in February 2007.

A 2-year-old girl died Wednesday night after she fell into the Arroyo Seco wash near Mount Washington and was swept several miles downstream into the Los Angeles River, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. The child, whose name was not released, was plucked from the river near where it passes under Interstate 10 by a firefighter suspended from a helicopter. Police said the child was with a male relative near Avenue 52 when she somehow fell into the river about 1:30 p.m.

Where humans have altered the landscape, nature often does not reappear by itself. Sometimes it needs a little help. Since Friday, bulldozers and dump trucks have been at work in Pasadena in a section of the Arroyo Seco, a major tributary of the Los Angeles River that has been choked by 450 tons of jagged concrete thought to be debris from construction of the 210 Freeway.

A wish list of improvements to a major portion of Pasadena's Arroyo Seco parklands has been approved by the Pasadena City Council, but the projects could cost $14 million or more, and no one knows when there will be money to pay for them all. Martin Pastucha, the city's public works director, said the Central Arroyo Master Plan adopted last week identifies about $7 million in restoration and rehabilitation work, with perhaps an equal amount yet to be detailed. Right now, the city has about $2.

\o7AS ITS NAME SUGGESTS\f7, the Gabrielino Trail is one of the oldest -- and perhaps most distinguished -- trails in Southern California. Follow this path north of the sprawling JPL campus into the Arroyo Seco and you are deep inside the forest, walking beside nearly 100 years of history. I hiked here a little more than two years ago when the Outdoors section was launched, and I returned on a Saturday last month when I learned that the section would be closing. The trail is a touchstone for me.