Art on a Box!

Hear ye – Hear ye!

The City of Monrovia is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Art on the Box Contest.

Side note: Did you know there is an actual Town Crier Competition? Neither did we...check it out… Annual Town Crier Competition

So back to business...The Art on the Box program was created to add some local color to our streets and beautify our communities by turning blank utility boxes into unique, stunning works of public art (trust us, this is no easy feat!) The program improves our neighborhoods while supporting local artists (and their mad skills!)  For some light reading, check out the full story of the Art on the Box Program.

Each year, the City reaches out to our local creative community to submit their designs for consideration.  This year there were thirteen entries and six images were chosen for creation. (While they were all terrific, we needed to stay within the budget.)  In the upcoming weeks the artists will paint various utility boxes throughout Monrovia...of course while maintaining social distancing protocols!

Can’t wait that long??? You don't need to twist our arm, we're happy to share a sneak peek at the images that will be coming soon to blank utility box near you!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this year’s images are a novel!

In addition to the six boxes that will soon be painted, Monrovia already has 20 Art on the Box creations. Twenty you ask? Yes! How many have you spotted in our beautiful city?

Sounds like a great scavenger hunt to us (#artinmonrovia)!

Here's a hint: Many of them are located off around Myrtle Avenue, but not all of them.   

Want to know the location and description of all boxes??? We hope your answer is yes.

Then, visit this Blog regularly (or better yet subscribe) to get updates on the finished boxes and locations. 

We're sooo excited to see the finished pieces and share them with you!

The annual E-1 post

Is all this COVID-19 stuff getting to you?  We hear you!  That's why with all the uncertainty in the world, it's nice that we can still count on a few things...Cinco de Mayo comes the day after May the 4th (be with you), which is a few days after May Day.  Consistency, normality, reliability...these are all things that we can use more of right now.  

So with May Day comes the big reveal...and no, we're not talking about the new American Idol...it's all about how many people live in Monrovia!  It is that time of year when our demographer friends with the state Department of Finance release an annual--no, the infamous "E-1 report".

And in the name of consistency, we bring you our annual blog post to document the occasion. (OK, we missed 2017 and 2018, but who's counting?)  We're sort of consistent...oh and that link you passed right by is another shameless attempt to boost our viewership statistics...so in preparing this offering, we went back an reread some of the previous posts (and so can you, hence the link).  Some are quite clever, we really do crack ourselves up sometimes...

There we go on one of those tangents. 

But even if we've missed a year here and there, lets give it up for all those wild and crazy (not!) state demographers.  They are consistent.  Year in and year out, they are busy counting people coming and going from California...

39,782,868...39,782,869...39,782,870...

OK, so we're pretty sure they're not standing at the state border with an abacus, are they?

No, of course not, these are scientists, scientists of demography.  Did you know that demography defined as the scientific study of human populations?  Neither did we, we just googled it.

So let's get down to the whole point of this...using a plethora of data from a myriad of sources: 

As of January 1, 2020, Monrovia's population was 37,935.  

So your reaction was probably the same as ours..."What?"  That's right, for two years straight, Monrovia's estimated population has decreased...ever so slightly (down 0.1%), but still a decrease.  The County population also decreased by the same percentage.  California as a whole grew, but it was very slow growth, a 0.2% increase.  

So a couple of things to keep in mind, these are projections, not an actual count of people (AKA The Census).  Also, these estimates are benchmarked to the 2010 Census data.  The decennial 2020 Census data will not impact these projections until 2022...it takes a long time to count 300,000,000 people.

Here's an interesting tidbit from all this...This is the first time since this data has been compiled that California has added more housing units than people.  Hmmm!  Not quite sure what to make of that, but there it is.  Looking for more interesting facts and deductions? Read all about it in their press release.

So before we bid you adieu, we need to ask you one question.

Did you fill out your Census?  

If not, do it now.  It's important.  You count!  Until next time, stay safe.  We need every reader we can get...and we like you too!