About

It has always been important to many of us to take the time and remember our roots together.  No matter what happened we are all of the same Arcadia Police family and shared many events.  As such, in the early 1980s, Andy Ballantyne began a newsletter that he sent to the retiree group to keep them informed as to the changes at Arcadia PD and our City of Arcadia.

At about the same time, Sergeant Ray Casey began to develop a retiree telephone list.  Originally this list was handwritten and carried in his pocket.  When we suffered a loss or illness in the bigger family, you could find Ray tucked in a corner making phone call after phone call to our retired group, informing them of the loss.  As time went on, the list that Sgt. Casey's list got bigger and bigger.  I remember him coming into my office asking for help making the calls.  I would get 1/2 the list and he would do the other.

When Ray Casey retired, he ended his goodbye speech to all of us in attendance with a statement of friendship.  He said, "Today, I have no enemies as life is far too short."    It is in that spirit we continued this quest to keep the bigger APD family connected with each other and current events. 

Our name came from Lieutenant Rudy Blum, which may have been said in jest, but the name stuck "The Big APD."   With the implementation of the 3% at 50 PERS retirement program, our numbers grew by leaps and bounds during the late 1990s and 2000s.  The quest to keep all of us informed was taken up by me and we converted over to connecting by Email.  Soon, email services could see us sending out too many emails for private use, and "blacklisted us" for over usage.  It was then we connected with Mail Chimp, a newsletter provider and we started creating newsletters about our events.  With that, we opened an account with Shutterfly, to catalog and display our pictures taken from our many gatherings. 

In 2023, after almost 20 years of use, Shutterfly closed down its picture-sharing websites and we created this website using "Google Sites" as a core base and Google Pictures along with Shutterfly,  as the storage place for pictures and videos.  To allow users more of an active voice we are also starting up a Facebook Group called, of course, The Big APD.  Although membership is restricted, the goal was to provide a haven for the exchange of common ideas and comments.  

We are now trying to involve more administrators in the maintenance and development of our websites.  To that end, I am happy to welcome Louis Haung to our development team as a great backup to our efforts.  We were fortunate to have Louis as a member of the Department over the years and now helping with our online presence.  We have over 150 members participating in our activities now and enjoying our work.  Please feel free to make comments about improvements and know you are welcome to join us as site administrators.

It is our goal to develop a place where we can remember, share, and enjoy life after "The Big APD" now and forever.  Thank you for your support and for trusting us these many years.

Rick Sandona  - RickSandona@gmail.com

Louis Haung - Louhuang@msn.com

TheBigAPD@Gmail.com 

The common link between all of us is/was our employment with the Arcadia Police Department, Arcadia, California, and our dedication to the citizens of Arcadia.  We remain dedicated and connected to each other.