From Pasadena Now
January 8, 2018
[Updated] Nearly eight months after the City Council approved an application for Pasadena to join the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District Board, and just days after the first sexually transmitted case of Zika was reported in Los Angeles County, Pasadena Public Health Dept. Environmental Health Services Division Manager Rachel Janbek will likely be confirmed Monday as the City of Pasadena’s official representative to the District.
For Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek, the appointment could not come at a more important time. Historically, the local vector control district was mostly concerned with locating and eliminating standing water or abandoned pools, he said, a manageable task.
“But now,” Tornek said Friday, “with the advent of West Nile and Zika, and these are scary things, it’s become a much more serious enterprise. This is no longer in the classification of a nuisance. This is now in the classification of a potential public health emergency.”
Pasadena Public Health Director Michael Johnson had campaigned for the City to join the District last spring after determining that his department could not provide the proper training, equipment or supplies to monitor and combat adult mosquitoes that could potentially carry the West Nile and Zika viruses.