MONTEBELLO - New benches and trees, improved facades, wider sidewalks with brick inlays, new curbs and gutters, new street lights.

A $10 million redevelopment project along Whittier Boulevard took about a year to complete. But as it nears completion this week, Montebello city officials said they hope the improvements will help erase some of the pain many business owners experienced during the year-long construction.

Along with the boulevard's beautification, city officials are banking on a new mixed-use, housing and retail development, to be built near Whittier and Montebello boulevards, to attract an influx of new businesses to the once-thriving commercial area.

"We want to increase the foot traffic like it was here once," Montebello City Councilwoman Norma Lopez-Reid said.

Glorious state vistas becoming big garbage heap

President Jefferson believed that "government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." A noble belief to be sure. But given the undisciplined behavior of countless numbers of illegal dumpers - locals and tourists - in Greater Sedona, the Red Rock Ranger District of the Coconino National Forest, the Prescott National Forest and the Verde Valley, it is, sad to say, empty rhetoric.

Time was when public lands were used for recreation, camping, partying and, around Sedona, vision quests and New Age ceremonies. These days, however, hikers on many of Sedona's most majestic trails, the area's greatest tourist attraction, encounter illegal dump sites, construction debris, toxic paint cans, rusted computers and even a boat, a 25-foot fiberglass fishing boat.

Road construction update

U.S. 10 WORK. Maintenance work is scheduled at two locations on U.S. 10 in Winnebago County. The westbound U.S. 10 off-ramp at County CB will be closed from 8:30 a.m. Monday to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. Crews will be making concrete repairs. One lane will be closed on westbound U.S. 10 about three miles east of State 76 on Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily. Crews will be leveling the approaches to the railroad bridge.

U.S. 41 REPAIRS. Concrete repairs have been taking place on U.S. 41 between Breezewood Lane in Winnebago County and State 15 in Outagamie County. The project was scheduled for completion Friday, but the deadline has been extended to 6 a.m. Wednesday. Through 6 a.m. Monday, all lanes and ramps on U.S. 41 will be open. From 6 p.m. Monday to 6 a.m.

High Schools: Bulldogs on the baseball field

It's bad enough when a team starts losing football players due to injuries that happen during the normal course of games and practice, but when injuries start happening because of the field on which the team practices, that's quite another story.

The Bulldogs will play their first game at Memorial Stadium Friday afternoon against Duxbury. That field needed to be repaired at the start of the season, and the first Rockland home game against East Bridgewater had to be played at Whitman-Hanson.