Griffith Park Wayist

Give thanks for something Angeleno today. Whether it's Griffith Park, Gustavo Dudamel, Griffith Park, deodar cedars, Playa del Rey, Griffith Park, Abbot Kinney, Footsie's on Fig, steak at Taylor's, La Moscata tamales, Union Station, Griffith Park or your favorite farmer's market, remember Los Angeles for a moment, the way it was and the way it can be.

And--on Thanksgiving Day, is this the "volunteer experience" throughout Los Angeles?

Janice, we hardly knew ye

Nada. Naught. Nil. Zero. Zilch.

And I believe many other residents here in San Pedro feel that way, too. If you’re a hard-core politician, a wealthy developer, a union leader, a big wig at a non-profit, an executive at a large business or just someone with bucks or clout – you get respect – and help. You have Janice’s ear.

If you’re someone like me, you may get into her office. When you do, you get the Janice, who listens with lots of smiles and let’s everything flow right back out … or tucks it away for later use. The appeasing Janice, pretending she was doing something to help – when she was doing nothing at all.

One of my many friends who volunteers kept asking me why city officials don’t help. “Do they think I’m doing all this for myself?” he asked.

And, on Thanksgiving Day, looks like MayorSam is now blackballing people from his site who not only don't share Republican views, but who don't share lite-Republican-but-not-bottlecapping-teabagger views, as teabagger Phil gets the cornfield perhaps for wielding the "budget-destoying socialist" trope or pisses off the pro-Krekorian forces one time too many.

I will let the Wayist wish you a Happy Thanksgiving on behalf of Griffith Park itself, but I do so on behalf of budget-restoring socialists everywhere.

USC is really not having the kind of year in which their faithful should be tempting fate and adrenalin by felony pranking in Westwood.

This video was shot at a park near you (Canyonback Trail, Santa Monica Mountains).

Want this on your City park trails? If not, read this.



Because this actually highlights the real nature of hard core mountain biking, IMBA -- who has been far from forthright about what they do -- may pull this video. Check it out while you still can.

---------------------------
(GP Wayist says)   Before everyone gets their undies in an uproar, here is some up-to-date information on the process:

...City staff will take comments on the draft Bicycle Plan (which can be read on line at labikeplan.org) until January 8th, 2010.

After January 8th, staff will begin to prepare a revised Plan (including the maps) based on all of the input that has been received through the website, at workshops, in letters, e-mails, and on comment cards.  We anticipate releasing a staff report and a revised Draft Bicycle Plan in February 2010 and giving all interested parties two months to review the revised plan.  We will then hold 2 public hearings on behalf of the City Planning Commission (one in the Valley and one near downtown) to hear your comments on the revised Plan. 

Following the 2 hearings, the City Planning Commission will hold a public meeting in the spring to act on the revised plan.  Staff will provide the Commission with information about the comments made at the two public hearings and any additional proposed modifications based on input received. 

Following the City Planning Commission's action, two City Council committees will act on the City Planning Commission's recommendation for the Bicycle Plan:  the Planning and Land Use Management Committee (PLUM) and the Transportation Committee.  Their recommendations will then be considered by the full City Council.

Please contact Jordann Turner at 213 978-1379 if you have any questions.

Jane Blumenfeld
Acting Deputy Director
Los Angeles Department of City Planning
213 978-1272

Roads closed due to Station Fire to reopen Monday
Daily News Wire Services 
Updated: 11/24/2009 02:59:41 PM PST

Roads through wildfire-damaged sections of the Angeles National Forest will reopen Nov. 30, officials said Tuesday. Parts of the Angeles Forest Highway, Angeles Crest Highway and Big Tujunga Canyon and Upper Big Tujunga Canyon roads that were closed due to the Aug. 26 fire will be reopened about 5 a.m. Monday. Anything more than a light shower, however, may prompt a new round of closings. Denuded hillsides are likely to produce slides when saturated. Work being done by the county Department of Public Works and Caltrans may create intermittent traffic delays, but most of the work has been done, county officials said.

Notice of closings due to rain will be relayed via message boards, news radio alerts, news releases, and commuters will be able to get e-mail alerts via www.dpwcare.gov and http://gis.dpw.lacounty.gov/roadclosures/main.cfm

While the roads will reopen, all campsites and backcountry trails remain off limits.

Fear sets up camp on a stretch of the L.A. River 

For residents along a grimy stretch of the waterway, the shooting of five people a year ago made a perilous place feel even more so.

By Christopher Goffard - LA Times - November 24, 2009

After the killings, the people on the river slept with their knives closer. They leashed guard dogs outside their tents and cardboard lean-tos. They listened for strangers' footsteps above the thrum of traffic on the bridges overhead. They got used to the sight of police stepping carefully along the big white rocks of the embankment. Below, in its concrete jacket, the dirty river crawled.

Violence is common and often unreported along the 51-mile Los Angeles River, daytime haunt of the occasional jogger and bird-watcher and in many parts a lawless no-man's-land populated by hard-core addicts, the mentally ill and uncountable others, broke or hiding. But what happened last November made an already fearful place feel more perilous still.

Someone gunned down three men and two women in a homeless encampment a few miles from the river's final southern curve into Long Beach Harbor. Hidden by bottlebrush trees along the Santa Fe Avenue off-ramp of the 405 Freeway, it was a cave-like spot with a single entrance -- a narrow footpath along a chain-like fence -- and a reputation as a drug den.

Police suspect the shooter came to punish a drug debtor and turned the gun on everyone to eliminate witnesses. Two things made it personal for river residents: One of the victims, 24-year-old Katherine Verdun, was a familiar face. And many understood how easily it could have been them.

For weeks, police who usually avoid the river were searching its banks, looking for witnesses, waiting for someone with information to claim a $20,000 reward. A year later, police are waiting still.

"You've got five people that were killed and no one came forward. That's unheard of," said Long Beach Police Det. Mark McGuire. "That community is terrified still. There's no way to get through to them yet, even with the reward."


continue reading "Fear sets up camp on a stretch of the L.A. River"
and see the slide show at the Los Angeles Times

Foothills residents awoke this morning to find a thick covering of ash, sand, and dust on everything in the wake of light Santa Ana winds. The unhealthful air and dust storm has continued all day today, an unpleasant reminder that an absolutely unprecedented amount of material is poised to flow into civilization when just the right amount of rain hits it.    -GPW


Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey are looking to the people most affected by the Station Fire to help them gather and track debris flows over the upcoming winter. Although the USGS has some monitoring stations already in place, clearly they cannot be everywhere at once. But residents are on site and available to report back with firsthand data. As long as everyone takes proper safety precautions, this is a very smart use of resources by going to the folks who have the first-hand encounters.

The details from Sue Perry at USGS:
---------------

Throughout the next few winters, those of us near the Station Fire burn area can provide a service to scientists studying the debris flow risk after wildfires. Scientists at the USGS use data from storm seasons to calibrate their debris flow understanding (and thus their warning systems). The more they know about actual flows, the better. Citizen reports can substantially improve the dataset, and thus the USGS is requesting your help.

If at any time you witness earth moving (landslide, debris flow, mudflow, mudslide), please send an email to scperry@usgs.gov, with as much of the following information as you are able to provide:

1. * Date of event
2. * Location of event (street address or intersection, lat-long coordinates from phone/handheld GPS, or description with distinguishing features)
3. * Description of event (is it moving or sitting? what sizes and kinds of materials can you see? how thick is it? anything else noteworthy?)
4. * Time event was witnessed
   
5. Time of actual occurrence of event, or estimate of when the event occurred
6. Description of any damage
7. Is clean-up underway?
8. Can you provide photos, sketches, video? (please don't send them until requested)
9. Witness' name and contact info 
   

IMPORTANT:

Do not put yourself at risk in ANY way to obtain this information. If the event is recent, more may be on the way.

For more information, please contact:
Sue Perry, Staff Scientist
Multi-Hazard Demonstration Project for Southern California
United States Geological Survey
525 So. Wilson Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91106
office: 626.583.6748
mobile: 818.285.9350
scperry@usgs.gov

In spite of what you may hear at Tom LaBonge's press conference today, the new "do not feed the wildlife" signs have already been up in Griffith Park for almost a week, and the Department of Recreation and Parks was the lead agency in their development.*   Here's a pic we took on Saturday of a new sign on Zoo Drive near Travel Town.

This is a far better sign in communicating the serious nature of the illegal act. The old yellow signs that simply said "Please Do Not Feed Wildlife" made it sound as if it were a polite request rather than a law and an issue with serious ramifications.

It is illegal to feed wildlife with very good reason. A fed wild animal is a dead wild animal, and everyone encountering animals that are not someone's pet needs to remember this.  The feeding of wildlife, especially coyotes, has been almost an epidemic in Griffth Park for some time. People pull their cars off the road and throw handouts to begging coyotes. Some individuals have been caught carrying food and feed dishes into the park daily to feed coyotes.

This thoughtless action - illegally feeding wildlife - by just a few people has dire consequences for many other lives. Fed wild animals lose their fear of humans and can then start actively seeking humans as providers of food. When humans are bitten by hungry animals like coyotes, they can be seriously injured and require treatment and painful rabies injections. If a prey animal like a coyote or bear bites a human, their life and the life of their packmates can be forfeit, such as what happened a few months ago in Griffith Park when a man named Renualdo Pensicola**  was bitten on the foot by a coyote asking to be fed.

Coyotes are dangerous animals. They are not "dogs". They will eat your dogs, and some varieties of coyotes can and do kill people, as happened in Nova Scotia in October. Please remember to give all wildlife the proper respect and distance the next time you are enjoying the out of doors. By doing so, you are helping to keep wildlife wild.

If not, then read this.

While Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee tour the country selling books, here is what people who really practice religion do this time of year: LA Dream Center hands out 1,800 turkeys and grocery bags---for free.

It will be a busy season for charitable giving, as demand is high. Harbor Interfaith in San Pedro will give out 350 turkeys--70 more than last year. First Pres in San Pedro will give out 1,000 Thanksgiving baskets, the Daily Breeze also reports.

Plenty of volunteer opportunities everywhere. The USDA has said that 49 million Americans are "food insecure." Here's the volunteer page for Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

Little Tokyo has been through a lot over the decades, and now--MetroLink construction.

It will cost almost a billion dollars to widen the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass. Construction starts this week.

Welcome to the only place in Griffith Park where you can openly guzzle beer while violating every noise ordinance in town and no one will look twice.

There's a book of photographs called "Empty Los Angeles"--including one of an empty 405, and this one of my old office on the right. Via Super Forest.

316,000! Can there possibly be a need for that many bongs? But that's the number that were camouflaged as Xmas ornaments and seized by customs. What do you people in Sunland Tujunga do, break one every other day?

Unrelated: A Hawthorne Police Lt. has been named "narc of the year." But you get a feeling, with 1,000 420 med shops around town, that the competition wasn't very stiff from LAPD this year.

Bitter Bernie Parks successfully blocked Angela Reddock's appointment to the Fire and Police Pension board by asking her simply to name her clients.

Another jumper downtown last week. [UPDATE: Not likely a jumper, blogdowntown says, but a faulty railing]. There have been a string of suicides from downtown hi-rise apartments of late. The apartment building--The Alexandria, on Spring--has a low-income designation.

Man steals purse from elderly nun at a Food 4 Less parking lot on San Fernando, hops into waiting Dodge Caravan.

If you go, go for Royce.

Royce Neuschatz was one hell of a  fighter for the wild parts of Griffith Park (see article below). Her family came out to loudly support the Historic Preservation of the park in her name. Royce would also want to protect the wild areas surrounding Royce Canyon - an area she saved from becoming an addition to the offense against nature next to it, the Toyon Canyon Landfill. Now closed, the published closure plan for the 1950s-era landfill is to return Toyon Canyon to the natural habitat is used to be.

Ironically, the land that constitutes Toyon Canyon today has the undivided attention of the councilman leading the hike on Sunday morning in honor of Royce, often stating off the record to friends and staff that he can't stand seeing that land '...just sitting there'.

From LaBonge's weekly email:   

Join Tom for a hike in honor of City Recreation & Parks Commissioner, environmental activist, recycling pioneer, and beloved friend of Griffith Park, Royce Neuschatz  
this Sunday, November 22, 2009, at 10:00 am. 
Meet in the Travel Town parking lot, 200 Zoo Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90027. 
Bring a sack lunch. For more information, e-mail kathy.kim@lacity.org

-----------

(LA Times -  November 7th,  1999)

Special to the Times

While frustrated Valley residents are nearing the end of their long and seemingly losing battle to block a city dump expansion in Granada Hills, joyful Griffith Park enthusiasts gathered Saturday to celebrate a decade-old victory in their own fierce dump battle. As word spread Saturday that Mayor Richard Riordan will support the expansion of Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills despite vehement local protests, roughly three dozen hikers, naturalists and horseback riders gathered in Griffith Park to rededicate Royce Canyon- -a plunging swath of parkland that was once slated to be filled with city garbage. Winded slightly by a steep hike through parched chaparral and along dusty horse trails, the celebrants also recalled the memory of the woman who saved the canyon that now bears her name: Royce Neuschatz.

It was the late Neuschatz, a city recreation and parks commissioner and regional planner, who friends said led a determined campaign to quash the dump proposal roughly 10 years ago. Neuschatz, who died of cancer at age 57, was recalled by friends and co-workers as a driving force in L.A.'s environmental movement, as well as a lover of music, good food and diverse friendships. "Royce did so much to motivate people to support the environment," said Andy Lipkis, who, along with Neuschatz, started the environmental group TreePeople. "There was a time when people wrote off L.A. as the black hole of the environment. . . . Today, and partly through Royce's leadership, L.A. has built the largest curbside recycling program in the world." As hikers recalled Neuschatz's memory Saturday, guides pointed out the towering Toyon Canyon Landfill just a short distance from Royce Canyon. Today, the stepped landfill sits capped and covered by a carpeting of sere grasses and a network of white pipes that shunt underground methane to collection tanks.

In the early 1980s, city officials had hoped to expand the Toyon landfill into what is now Royce Canyon, dubbing it Toyon II. The canyon would have been filled with trash within about 18 months. Neuschatz's battle against the expansion was different from today's Granada Hills fight in one significant way, said Mary Nichols, secretary of the California Resources Agency and a longtime friend of Neuschatz: Royce Canyon was in a public park. "She was opposed to this idea that just because there's a hole in the ground, it should be filled with trash," said Nichols, who attended Saturday's event. "Royce saw that as the desecration of the idea of a public park. Indeed, other friends said that up until the late 1980s, public lands were often targeted as potential sites for unpopular uses such as prisons and dumps. "It sounds absurd today," said urban planner Arnie Sherwood. "People today have an appreciation now that we don't have enough parkland." At Sunshine Canyon, residents surrounding the dump expansion area have complained that the landfill may cause health problems. City officials, including the mayor, say that although the proposal is unpopular in the area, the expansion will benefit Los Angeles overall. The landfill proposal must still be approved by the City Council, which has favored the plan in preliminary votes.

Most of those who assembled for the Royce Canyon rededication said they were regular visitors to Griffith Park, but were introduced to it by Neuschatz. Although many were familiar with attractions in the southern part of the park--such as Griffith Observatory and the Greek Theatre--and the zoo and museums to the north, few knew much about the network of hiking and riding trails in between. Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency, said Neuschatz introduced him to the area through horseback riding. He grew to love the area so much that he moved to a house adjacent to the park. Another close friend and aide to the mayor, Tom LaBonge, said he, Neuschatz and the late Charlie Turner--the first honorary mayor of Griffith Park-- regularly hiked through the park.

On Saturday, LaBonge led the pack of hikers past thickets of scrub oak, darkened buckwheat and toyon trees. Sweating under the load of his 18-month-old son, Charles, who was strapped to his father's back, LaBonge said he would never forget those hikes. "We'd hike from the observatory to Mt. Hollywood and talk the whole time," LaBonge said. "It was amazing. By the time we got to the summit, we'd have all the world's problems solved. The trouble is, once we left the summit, it all got away from us."

Please...

REPORT POACHERS:
(661) 723-2703

Sunland resident Elaine Brown reports the following excellent take down:

"....Due to the availability of a call-if-you-see-hunters phone number given to us by Mike McIntyre the Forestry person in charge of the Burned Area of the Station Fire, we were able to catch a couple of poachers who were hunting deer behind the Riverwood Ranch today. According to the (US Forest Service) rangers, they have been trying to catch these guys for a long time...

FYI that number to call is (661) 723-2703"

Riverwood Ranch:

View Larger Map

Hunting is illegal within Los Angeles City limits. I personally had a run-in while hiking within City limits with bow-hunters shooting all around me in the same area not too long ago. Hopefully these are the same irresponsible scumbags and they will be going away for some time.

Griffith Park has illegal poachers from time to time, as does Hansen Dam. As always, the numbers to call are:

9-1-1
(323) 644-6661 - Park Rangers
(323) 913-7390 - OPS

Make sure you call all of the numbers so that the call is officially logged by all these agencies.

Logs define need for service in Los Angeles' large parks, even if the agency cannot actually respond to the call for whatever reason. Make sure you are on record with the need by calling it in when you are in a safe location and can safely make the calls. Otherwise, no logs = no need. Unfortunately, that's how this City works.

Work off that Thankgiving dinner with a pair of free nature walks to the famed Hollywood sign in Griffith Park. Two hikes led by a park ranger, will be offered during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday weekend on  Nov. 27 and 28, from 8 to 11 a.m.

Interpretive Park Ranger Ernie Ybarra will lead the treks, which will start at the Griffith Park Visitor Center adjacent to the Ranger Station. Those planning to participate should dress accordingly and bring drinking water and snacks.

These intermediate-level hike will be 4 to 6 miles and is designed for those who have some previous hiking experience.

Griffith Park Visitor Center
4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles
Information: (323) 644-6661, ext. 1549
ernie.ybarra@lacity.org

MT, No Exit: Damon's, 11.18.09

Pot warehouse 25 feet from Topanga Police Station is a classic. Very sophisticated farm it was, too.

That's not all that's secret: Secret oil rigs in LA, the HuffPo says, with video. And?

The Orlov Daily News also reports that DA Cooley badgered the City to delay in countering Carmen the Clown on the med420 shop issue. Council will take five days to respond to the issue that matters to the two unctuous Republican tipplers. Cooley's sounding more and more like a teabagger: "They have created a mess with this. They just ignored the legal advice they were given and went off on their own path, and they don't know where they are going. It's time for them to wake up and follow the law and their oath of office to uphold the Constitution." (Isn't it teabaggers who always conflate their own readings of the law, rather than the court's reading of it, with the Constitution?) With this stripe of political rhetoric, he likely crossed the same line Carmen the Clown crossed when he threatened to jail Councilmember Jan Perry, and it will be fun to watch Council respond in kind.

The race in CD2 is now to MayorSam like Night Train is to a wino. Phil Jennerjahn, who likes to call Democrats "budget destroying socialists," has endorsed Chris Essel and is willing to pimp at the site daily for her. The others at the blog are fairly openly backing Paul Krekorian. Both Krekorian and Essel are carpetbaggers to the district, and they have yet to articulate a sliver of difference between each other, excepting background--both have chronically demonstrated a complete willingness to remain completely beholden to governments, unions, utilities, the Mayor, para-government agencies, and any prevailing westerly political wind at all. They just walked different sides of the street to get where they are today. So the race has turned into an olfactory contest between the two hooded skunks behind the candidates, John Shallman (who recently got steamrolled by Garamendi's team in Congressional District 10) and Eric Hacopian (whatever happened to Nick Pacheco?). Neither one of these talk to your humble present scribe. We are much admiring the celebrity death match behind the scenes, and still hope the race ends in a 0-0 tie.

The DWP union pwns Essel and wants to pwn her all the more. "A nonprofit group closely tied to the Department of Water and Power employee union has filed a federal lawsuit against the City’s Ethics Commission, saying a city campaign fundraising law is unfairly limiting its ability to advocate on behalf of City Council candidate Christine Essel. / The case comes during a two-week period when outside groups have poured more than $280,000 into independent expenditures to boost Essel’s bid to replace former City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who is now city controller. Among those groups is the political arm of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 18, which has spent more than $93,000 in support of Essel’s campaign. The union is headed by Brian D’Arcy."

Kevin et al. tell us that Ruth Seymour is retiring. Of the retired nothing but good should be spoken. But it is a good time for Ruth to go, as KCRW's Arbitron ratings are paling compared to KPCC's and especially KUSC's. Ruth herself has protested the ratings measurements, but it's easy to figure anecdotally--now come on, don't you remember how much more vital KCRW sounded before the Obama election, now over a year ago?

Bizarre blogging about Los Angeles art scene at the NYTimes site begins: "For a city that often gets knocked for being starved for culture..." What?

Some of a steak and a martini at Damon's last night. The malls are empty but the chi chi lives.

The star-studded video release party for the most recent Star Trek redux took place at the Griffith Observatory this past Monday.

Cool photo, but we're wondering what the locals thought of the Hollywood invasion on the land Griffith J. Griffith donated as an "educational" institution.

Click for more pics of the wingding.

Below is a video clip of the Enterprise redux dropping in on the party (after the commercial).

MT, Santa Ynez, 2008


Uh-oh. Not so much pumpkin pie this year. Nestle grows 85% of the crop for canning.

If you were scared by Ron Kaye yesterday, Planning is recommending that lots larger than 150 x 50 may qualify for Accessory Dwelling additions. The Planning Department indeed recommends that Hillside areas, Equinekeeping District, and along Scenic Highways as designated by the General Plan not be permitted to add on Accessory Dwellings, also anywhere the width of the street is substandard.

Damn, I was looking forward to indenturing a perky foreign USC music major to the terrace for a spell.

Grumbles, we hear staff grumbles about Cooley and Nuch, two Queegs captaining increasingly mutinous ships. As evidenced by comments at the former fishwrap of record's med 420 story, people are slowly waking up to the fact that Cooley is a rightwing Republican misfit.

Not much interested in the digital billboard divide, but we like the number: 101.

All those water main breaks were caused by corrosion, says the DWP, who alert the Orlov Daily News as though this solves everything. The agency's bold goal is to reduce the replacement cycle of the pipes from every 400 years down to every 180. I'm not kidding. Council will review their report and add their own special variety of farce.

Downtown, planning happens by committee. To watch the rehab of Harlem Place unfold has been exemplary. Blogdowntown has details on the next community meeting Thursday.

Beverly Hills also voted to ban kitty declawing.

Are you sure there is no one willing to step up and run against Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge in 2011?

After reading this and thinking about what this means for the perimeter of Griffith Park - much less the rest of the city - you may want to look a little harder for that ideal candidate.

----------------------
Coming Soon to Your Neighborhood: 
Granny Flats, Converted Garages, Houses Turned into Tenements

By Ron Kaye   November 16, 2009

This may be the most desperate and despicable act yet by City Hall in its long war to eradicate the middle class from Los Angeles.

They call it a proposed Accessory Dwelling Unit ordinance. That's a phrase intended to obscure its intent which is to give every owner of a single-family home property the "right by law" to turn their house into apartments, to convert garages into living units and to even put second houses, granny flats, on their property the size of the average bungalow.

It ought to be called the Tenement Law.

Every property owner is an overstatement. It's every property owner except those on hillsides, horse-keeping areas, scenic highways or live on narrow lanes.

In other words, the rich are exempt from seeing the quality of life in their neighborhoods ruined by families living in a 1,200 square foot house in your neighbor's back yard, of having hordes of renters living next door, of cars parks all over the place -- exempt from the policies of densification that are turning LA into Manhattan, subway to come.

And if that weren't bad enough, no less than Council President Eric Garcetti with support from Bill Rosendahl, Paul Koretz, Tom LaBonge and Richard Alarcon introduced a motion Oct. 20  to take the Tenement Law a step further.

They want to legalize thousands of illegal "ADUs" showing as much contempt for the law and the public interest as the owners of those properties showed when they turned garages into death traps, houses into tenements and ignored every Building and Safety code in the books.

They want the Council to order the Planning Department. which is now "conducting a study which will lead to a recommendation for permanent Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) regulations," to "study and report back in regard to the legalization of previously unpermitted converted units "

Their logic goes like this:

"The current housing crisis is exacerbated by the turmoil in the mortgage lending industry where foreclosures have increased and many other homeowners are on the brink. This situation impacts all segments of the housing market, but is particularly dire for those with low incomes, those with special needs and the homeless.

"The number of low income households and the pervasiveness of poverty in Los Angeles are markedly higher than in other urban areas. These factors further speak to the need for more affordable housing in Los Angeles, but creating this housing will require greater subsidies than in other areas as well."

Imagine what this city will be like when every inch of it is paved over and twice as many people are living on your street.

Never have I seen the naked truth so clear in a city document.

We have more people than other cities because we have followed policies that encourage poverty by chasing away good-paying jobs, destroyed our schools, tolerated sweatshops, allowed slum conditions to flourish.

And now we have a moral and soon-to-be-legal obligation to provide every poor person a place to call home with subsidized rents, wages, utilities and other public services -- subsidies paid for by the shrinking numbers of middle class residents who still think there's a chance in hell of changing the direction of City Hall or are too set in their ways to admit the game is up.

Imagine what this city will be like when every inch of it is paved over and twice as many people are living on your street.

That's the vision and time is running short.

City Hall, exposed now for its failure in everything from financial management to the proliferation of digital billboards and marijuana dealing, will do anything to protects its perks, privileges and paychecks.

That's where the Planning Department they have totally politicized comes in.

The planners have been assigned the task of escalating the war against homeowners -- 2,000 percent increases in fees, failure to measure cumulative impacts of development, out-of-date or meaningless planning documents, approval of every project where the influence peddlers have spread around enough money.

And now granny flats and tenements -- a campaign they are running in hopes nobody would notice with a backup plane to lie, mislead and obfuscate whenever necessary.

Citizen journalist Karen Kanter reported at OurLA.org about Saturday's meeting the Neighborhood Council's Plan Check Group with City Attorney Carmen Trutanich on the ADU proposal.

Contrary the claims of city officials that this ordinance is "mandated" by a six-year-old state law, AB 1866, Trutanich said there is nothing that require the city "to adopt or amend an ordinance for the creation of these units. As for the criteria that was adopted by state law, there was no mention of minimum lot size or parking requirements or anything related to restrictions on residential density.

"In fact, room was left for cities to narrow the state requirements. Pasadena, for example, adopted an ordinance that required that these units could only appear on lots with a size of 15,000 square feet or more."

City planners in LA want have issued interim guidelines that would reduce the minimum lot size to half or a third of Pasadena's and to all but eliminate parking restrictions.

I just spent 18 months and wrote 16 articles tracking an illegal conversion of a house in my Valley floor tract into three apartments I saw the impact this one ADU had on my neighbors and neighbhorhood and can imagine if there were a lot more. We would have no choice except to sell our house or cash in on two or three tenants each paying more in rent then our mortgage.

So maybe, if you all out there aren't going to get mad enough to stop this madness, I need to change my mind and consider this a city pension for an old newspaperman living on Social Security. By God, I could live on a beach in Mexico like a king with the proceeds of my tenement in the Valley.

Your next Mayor of Los Angeles in 2013:

a) Sarah Netanyahu
b) Madonna Ciccone
c) Benjamin Netanyahu
d) Guy Oseary

While everyone is eulogizing Doug Ring for figuring out a way politicians could stay on developers payroll a little longer, wait a minute--wasn't he also the guy who shut off north Brentwood to commoner traffic, raising property values for Doug Ring and enabling the first consulary domino, the Danish House, to sell and split?

I don't suppose the Mayor will say anything to the Danes about leaving behind a skeleton staff and largely tiptoeing out of town when he's in Copenhagen next month. You can bet Bloomberg would, though. Then again, nobody would tiptoe out of New York, anyway.

Council tells Carmen the Clown to stuff it again, in the Orlov Daily News. The guy was smokin' something and came up with a too-draconian pot-ban---again.

We're number one in--spyhilis. Yay, us.

The Mayor is such a yenta when it comes to schools.

Here are all the restaurants you have access to now on the Gold Line. Except King Taco and Lupe's, bizarrely.

Get out your cameras and warm clothes because the wee hours of Tuesday morning is the best viewing time for this year's Leonids meteor shower.

Although peak viewing was at 1:45pm Pacific Time this afternoon with up to 300 meteors per hour, the best viewing for Southern California is expected between midnight tonight and 5am with the maximum number of meteors expected to be around 30 per hour.

The Leonids come from debris from Comet Temple-Tuttle and are so named because they appear against the backdrop of the constellation of Leo.  The Earth may pass through enhanced streams of particles during the following afternoon, possibly providing Asia with an even better show, and may make the shower worthwhile to watch again from here between midnight and 5 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the 18th.

According to Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office on a NASA blog, “A remarkable feature of this year’s shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars.” Now that is worth seeing! Just imagine what ancient peoples would have thought about the Roman God of War suddenly shooting meteors at them.

Leo will rise in the eastern part of the sky as seen from Los Angeles after midnight tonight. Send in your Leonids pics from around town and we'll put them up here on the Wayist blog.

Advertisement from  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3201814.htm

Price is unknown... e us if you know how much they're asking. Of course, if we are having to ask, then we obviously cannot afford it.  :-)

-----

Premier Riding School for Sale In Burbank, CA
Offered by Owner of USHorse.biz, 
Located at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center

Traditional Equitation School located at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center is for Sale! With 330 days of sunshine a year, THIS is the place to ride horses! Leave your snow shovel behind.

Burbank, CA (PRWEB) November 16, 2009 -- It doesn’t get any better than this, a coveted location at the premier equestrian facility in the Los Angeles area and next to a large network of trails in Griffith Park! After 30 years of owning this going concern, Patricia Kinnaman is retiring to her other pursuit, USHorse.biz.

Traditional Equitation School was established in 1979 Stellar reputation and time-tested goodwill in the Los Angeles equestrian community Located at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, the top equestrian facility in Southern California, offering facilities and amenities unmatched in the region Approved and certified in 1999 by the British Horse Society - a distinction not many achieve! Offering training for all disciplines 30+ happy, healthy and safe horses suitable for all levels of riding skill Huge inventory of Western and English tack and equipment Experienced trainers and support staff Built-in, loyal student base Location, location, location Financials available

Positioning for 2013...

The Orlov Daily News has Mayor's Race 2013 gossip:

It's beginning to look like Campaign 2013 has begun.

With term limits forcing Villaraigosa from office then, there has been a noticeable increase in the political activity at City Hall.

Council President Eric Garcetti apparently got the jump on City Controller Wendy Greuel with his proposal to revive the Business Tax Advisory Committee. Greuel aides complain she had been working to call for its re-establishment when Garcetti trumped her.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Jan Perry has been taking a much more public role in recent weeks - from boosting downtown development by pushing through a billboard exemption for L.A. Live to getting up at 5 a.m. for television and radio interviews over the appointment of Charlie Beck as police chief.

Councilman Richard Alarcon, who ran for mayor in 2003, also has been active on a variety of fronts, from creating banking districts to combating runaway film production.

Fundraising for the next mayoral election can't begin until 2011, but that doesn't mean the campaigning, official or unofficial, can't start now.

It is expected to be a crowded race in three years. And it might be a good race for someone outside of City Hall, with a lot of support still out there for former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and developer Rick Caruso.

The former fishwrap of record now calls Eli Broad "art collector and philanthropist." He wants to build another monument to himself, this one to house his own art collection.

Via LA Creek Freak, we learn Ed Reyes will be among those on a panel tonight downtown at G727 at 727 South Spring at 6 p.m. Swedes have put together an exhibition loosely regarding a possible future for the LA river entilted "The Fifth Ecology - LA Beyond Desire." The opening was last night.

At 7 p.m. in Los Feliz, the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council Parks, River and Open Space Committee will meet in the community room of the Citibank on Hillhurst.

On a message board elsewhere in the dark of the night, Mulholland Terrace (hey, that's me!) promised a historical review of Chris Essel's involvement at Paramount with the Hollywood Business Improvement District, which helped hand over real estate to the Church of Scientology at fire sale prices in the late 1980's, and which launched her own CRA board career and segue into politics.

Quote of the day:

"I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State."--Thoreau, Walden

Go green for the Light Festival,  19th century-style!

From December 9th through the 30th, horse fans can enjoy the DWP Holiday Festival of Lights in Griffith Park on horseback, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays only. Recreation and Parks personnel will be on hand to control the safe use of the path between the riders and walkers.

Group rides are welcome. The equestrian entrance to the Light Festival is at the Griffith Park  Park Ranger station. Do not enter from the Zoo side (the Zoo is the exit).

For those without their own horses, rental horses and guides are available at the Diamond Bar Stables. Call 818-242-8443 for information.

For those wishing to trailer their horses in, ample parking is available in the dirt lot across the street from the Live Steamers (next to Travel Town). Exit the 134 Freeway on Forest Lawn Drive off ramp. Travel Town and Live Steamers are east of the exit on Zoo Drive (left turn at the stoplight to access Zoo Drive, next to Martinez Arena). There is a wide trail along the 134 Freeway , past the Autry Museum and on to entrance to the Light Festival at the Ranger Station.

Stanford stuns USC--again.

Is the Trojans' slide towards utter ignominy tied to the slide of the City of Los Angeles? Is USC simply unable to attract the talent it takes to beat Stanford and Oregon anymore?

Is it Mike Garrett? Pete Carroll? Mike Garrett?

OC Register: Stanford humbles SC...

If the final score Saturday and the 47-20 loss at Oregon on Oct. 31 didn't hammer home the point, Carroll conceded that his team is no longer the dominant force it once was. Here were his responses to a series of questions on that subject:

Does USC still have better athletes than everyone else?

"That's not the case."

Have others caught up to you?

"There's no doubt."

Is your team getting better?

"There's no signs of that."

Carroll's teams typically have improved; before Saturday, the Trojans hadn't lost a game in November under the ninth-year coach, whose only regular-season defeat after Halloween had come against UCLA on Dec. 2, 2006.

USC also had lost only one game at the Coliseum since 2001, Carroll's first season. The winner that day was Stanford as well. The Cardinal was a 41-point underdog, and the stunning result became known in Palo Alto as the "Biggest. Upset. Ever." It was replaced Saturday by the "Most. Points. Ever." The previous mark belonged to Cal, which scored 52 against USC on Nov. 2, 1991....

Said senior safety Taylor Mays, who could have been a first-round pick in this year's NFL draft: "If this is my legacy, it's sickening."

Plaschke:

A Stanford senior communications major stood in the middle of a nearly empty stadium, the homecoming crowd having long since gone home, and administered the latest plunge into the heart of a USC football season.

Richard Sherman had earlier leaped in front of a Matt Barkley pass and returned it for a touchdown.

He had then posed for the cameras while jeering, "I'm 2 and 0 in the Coliseum. Fight on, SC!"

But this was worse. This was about more than a 34-point deficit on the scoreboard. This was about an unimaginable deficit in a culture.

Said Sherman of the Trojans: "You could just see that everything is not there. They don't run as hard. They don't play as hard."

Michelle Huneven reads from “Blame”
Co-Presented by Phoenix House and Skylight Books

Skylight will donate 10% of the sales of “Blame” from this event to support Phoenix House’s treatment programs in Los Angeles, which every day help hundreds of youth and adults in our community overcome the trauma of addiction and its related problems.

Sunday, November 22
Start: 4:00 PM
Location: Skylight Books, 1818 North Vermont, Los Angeles, CA

Phoenix House is delighted to co-present a reading with Michelle Huneven of her new book, “Blame,” with Skylight Books located at 1818 North Vermont Avenue. By mentioning Phoenix House when purchasing the book from Skylight, 10% of the sale will be donated to support Phoenix House’s programs, which helps individuals, families, and communities rise above addiction.

In this gripping tale, Huneven charts the parameters of guilt and how a young, wisecracking intellectual becomes a shadow of her former self. Patsy MacLemoore, a boozy history professor, is helping her boyfriend, Brice, take care of his niece, Joey, whose mother is undergoing cancer treatment. But when Patsy goes on a bender and emerges from a drunken blackout in jail, she learns she’s accused of having run down a mother and daughter in her driveway. After her conviction, Patsy transforms from free spirit into a convict, and Huneven deftly underscores the bizarre trajectory Patsy’s life has taken. Huneven’s exploration of misdeeds real and imagined is humane, insightful and beautiful.

Michelle Huneven is the author of two previous novels, Round Rock and Jamesland. She has received a General Electric Foundation Award for Younger Writers and a Whiting Writers’ Award for fiction. She lives in Altadena, California.

MT, Sidewalk: abstract concrete, Atwater, 11.13.09

Tonight and tomorrow are the last nights for Knightsbridge Theatre's production of Hamlet. Knightsbridge is one of the consistently best limited equity theaters in town.

Station Fire mudslide in LCF. And that was after one of the lightest of November rains. Look out...

Noted: in announcing his death, the Daily News calls Doug Ring a "political activist." To a lot of old time journalists in LA, Ring was an important figure.

As we continue to build schools, Cortines continues to threaten the LAUSD with massive layoffs.

Tamale class Tuesday at Tarascos in Silver Lake. $15.

One, two, three, four....


Shaken by the appearance of a flyer that suggests signing forms may mean deportation, LAUSD launches a campaign to make sure that students get themselves counted by the 2010 census.

Atwater Village Neighborhood Council says NO to Tom LaBonge. They don't want southeast Atwater renamed "River Glen." There is no glen and there is not much of a river. LaBonge wants to rename the nondescript spot something cheerier for local realtor's sake.

MoCA rebrands itself this weekend. Eli Broad gave $30 million so the museum could stay open as something other than a shell of itself.

The Gold Line spur opens Sunday. You gave $898 million to give the city a rail link to King Taco.

Westwood and El Sereno have more in common than you think. They're both liberal activist hotbeds, they're both mostly pwned by out-of-town landlords, and they're both strongly identified with declining schools rife with nepotism and the meretricious that don't always serve the public interest. And now include dysfunctional Neighborhood Council formation to the commonalities. Westwood's formation is apparently so bad that Councilmember Koretz is leaning towards withholding their certification, CityWatch reports. The Westwood Hills Property Owners Association out-and-out opposes the formation.

Through it all, Westwood is getting a Barney's Beanery, although we would submit that El Sereno needs one more than Westwood does.

More people of uncertain employment status in Sunland Tujunga release to the Republican agitprop blog MayorSam announcement of their support of Paul Krekorian in the CD2 runoff with Chris Essel. Yours truly is hoping for a tie and that both candidates graciously bow out.

You'll note that Chicago's lights stayed on these past two days. 2016 Olympics host Rio's did not.

Sandra Loh, a tireless self-publicist even in the best of times, can't quite resist putatively reviewing a couple of mommy books in order to make some more unseemly noise about herself. Her life, in fact, is resembling Zuma Dogg's more and more, and likely she is putting herself as much at risk; even the falsely cheerful cryptograms that she strings together as sentences indicate as much.

She wants her readers to understand that she had an affair and that it was her fault and that her marriage ended and that she is a bad mother and that we should laugh along, because it's funny, and she wants to let us know that not to laugh along is to lace a Scarlet A on her inadequate bosom.

What she doesn't realize is that she should be writing fiction, because that is the place to make peccadillos come out right: with imagination in attendance, and at some arm's length to the self, where maladies might be worked on, sorted out, even diagnosed accurately. But that would take discipline and an ability to leave the self, and neither are Sandra's long suits; we know this, because we know too much about her already. To be honest, I would rather read Loh than Zuma, but also Loh apparently has further to fall, which makes one a voyeur in indulging her even for a few paragraphs. It is watchable, but it is no longer funny, nor informative, nor even coherent, Loh's life; it is simply a crisis in need of solving.

MT, Roadside Devotional, Riverside Drive, 11.11.09

The former fishwrap of record boldly asks today for what everyone has been begging for: better schools. I thought that was what the board they endorsed was for.

Some of our hottest local stars however care far more for whales. Joely Fisher and Chris Duddy hosted a whale of a benefit for them at their Sherman Oaks home, the Orlov Daily News says.

Drive-by in Boyle Heights leaves one dead. Gang intervention efforts picking up a little in Atwater.

We hear one of the reasons Cecilia Estolano was asked to leave the CRA was that she readily cut a check to the State from the agency's coffers but had no money on hand for the City. With so many State Assembly alumni in City Council, and with no journalists to follow the money, expect further raids on the City coffers out of public view.

With no head of the CRA or of the HD, isn't it time to consolidate these two agencies anyway? Or even a trifecta with the equally rudderless Community Development Department? Just asking. How is it that Housing can float along for nine months without a replacement, while the Police get one immediately? Don't answer "because the Police are more important" because Housing is the biggest landlord in the City--maybe we could simply do without the Department entirely?

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.   -John Adams

Councilman Tom LaBonge’s Winter 2009 Community Congress will take place on Wednesday November 18th 2009.

These things are usually a lot of hot air and little substance with LaBonge interrupting the speaker and controlling the conversation, so don't think this is about community input. This quarter, LaBonge has collared City Attorney Carmen Trutanich as his guest. Trutanich can monopolize a discussion as much as LaBonge, so this might be mildly entertaining. It might be more fun still if Nuch's biggest fan, Mulholland Terrace, shows up for a little friendly chit chat.

We suggest going for the free food and possible entertainment value only. Certainly don't expect anything like true community discourse to occur.

Community Congress
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
 
4:30-5:30 p.m. Workshop on New City Special Event Permitting System
5:30 p.m. Light Dinner Served
6:00-7:00 p.m. Congress on Public Safety and Infrastructure Upgrades
7:00-8:00 p.m. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich

Hollywood City Hall
6501 Fountain Ave.
Los Angeles CA 90028

RSVP to Jeanne Min (213) 978-2616

What part of the Constitution is healthy, and what part is unhealthy? Ask a Democrat and he is not sure; ask a Republican and he will say "all of it."

Paul Krugman on this year's election eve posited the idea that Republicans are becoming a "rump party"--a party taken over by leftovers, who have no ideas of their own, and no ability to govern, but who can still on occasion obstruct. As the rump party's protests dissolve into a tissue of lies, the nation's independent ranks are swelling as people are more and more embarrassed even to call themselves "Republican" at all.

We have seen after only a year how eager Republicans are to assault Democratic ideas. They took it for a long time--eight years. Even though the Constitution clearly calls for regulation of commerce, they call any new regulations "socialism." They deregulated our nation's businesses to the brink of bankruptcy, so they are anxious to associate regulation itself with economic problems. They hid behind the flag itself rather than engage in meaningful critique of the war.

When we say vets give their lives for our freedom, it's very unlikely that they specifically give their lives in particular for the freedom to make the president's face look like a Joker, or to conflate death camp images with health care reform, or even to let a media organization suggest film clips of a modestly-attended event stand for film clips of a poorly attended one. Yet these are the images and ideas of not only the rump of the Republican party, they come from on high.

Freedom of the press includes freedom to distort, even freedom to lie. But our veterans chose the high ground, not the low one. Even if our Constitution is strong enough that it guarantees the right of people to tell lies, we owe our veterans more truth, and fewer distortions and lies, in our political discourse.

Why do we care? Because...ostensibly....Ms. Principal paid for the restoration of Dantes' View in Griffith Park, too. (see article below)


She did? This is news to us! We know Tom LaBonge got state money for both Dantes' View ($225,000) and Captain's Roost ($110,000). Today Dantes' View looks pretty good (top photo) while Captain's Roost  (bottom photo) still  lies in ruins.

Makes ya think.


----
From Tree People:

On October 30, actress, activist and entrepreneur Victoria Principal joined nonprofit TreePeople and the U.S. Forest Service to announce a $25,000 gift to support TreePeople’s fire restoration efforts in the Angeles National Forest. Victoria Principal’s gift kicks off a fundraising goal of $250,000 to help restore the Angeles National Forest following the 2009 Station fires that burned 144,000 acres, the largest fire in Los Angeles County history. The announcement took place at TreePeople’s headquarters in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles. “I am grateful for the long relationship I’ve had with TreePeople,” said Victoria Principal. “Because of this enduring collaboration, I am confident that the funds I’m providing will be used for thoughtful restoration, to benefit the earth, and to support my California neighbors.”

Victoria Principal joined Jody Noiron, U.S. Forest Supervisor for the Angeles National Forest, and TreePeople founder Andy Lipkis to transplant Jeffrey pine tree seedlings originating from the devastated Angeles National Forest. “We’re grateful to Victoria Principal for her foresight and generosity in stepping forward with leadership funds to help launch TreePeople’s restoration of the Angeles National Forest after the recent fires,” said TreePeople Founder and President Andy Lipkis. “We are very excited that this lead gift will inspire others, and will enable us, together with the U.S. Forest Service, to engage thousands of volunteers to revitalize the forest so it can be healthy for generations to come and provide critical water supply, air protection, habitat and recreation.”

Eyes to Gratts Elementary in Pico-Union. A flyer in Spanish caused LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines to blow his mind. The first paragraph of his presser reads:

LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent (LAUSD) Ramon C. Cortines today condemned the distribution of an anonymous, bogus flyer distributed to Latino parents threatening them with deportation if they signed a petition in support of a charter school.

The District is building a school across the street from Gratts and wants it to go charter--because it wants as many schools as possible to go charter. The school is 95% Latino.

If an "anonymous, bogus" flyer reached the level of Superintendent for denunciation, it would appear that such a tactic might have touched some kind of nerve.

So where are the speed bumps?

In what can only be described as willful geographic amnesia in the name of okie cultural tourism, the City of Santa Monica will designate the Santa Monica Pier as the end of Route 66.

Not content to burn the enormity of the Angeles National Forest, the Station Fire is now going after the Forest's roots too.

"I DIDN'T LET YOU BUILD IT FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS" is not among Zev Yaroslavski's "Seven things you should know about the Westside subway." The pol has a new propaganda site, which serves as back-up in case the Times ever fails to run one of his op-eds.

Flying under the radar this week has been the story in the Downtown News that the Planning Commission will take up the matter of a further dramatic expansion of LA Live! this Thursday.

We'll see what Carmen the Clown does to stave off this trend: The Orlov Daily News's Troy Anderson reports that the City's legal costs have been $137 million over the past two years.

(The Clown himself was spotted palling around with anti-abortion advocate Ruby de Vera this Sunday. Ruby now works for Wendy---Wendy, I'd watch my back...)

As of this posting, there are...

236 comments about "This is It" taking $20.1 million...

1 comment about the City Council vote and prospects of LAUSD implementing mandatory uniforms for students.

That is all.

405, sigalert.com, 7:30 a.m.


Please tell us if the 405 is any better this morning and five years were worth the wait. We don't get out there much.

The newspaper that doesn't advance its own opinions credibly co-sponsored a poll about people's opinions. If it was really interested in what people think, it would reshuffle the editorial board in a way that makes it relevant to Los Angeles again, instead of doing this kind of self-serving veiled focus-group polling.

There's Daily News/Orlov inadvertently swallows the Mayor's Save Chris Essel campaign whole and follows up the Mayor's meeting last week on runaway production with a piece of its own. (Ed.: To give the Orlov Daily News more credit than that, he/they interview some venues that have some doubts about their inclusion on the list of hostile-to-film venues--but nobody questions the timing of the Mayor's office push for more recognition while he's stealthily running a horse in CD2). If either really cared two bits about either the film industry or what unions want they would have been slamming the Mayor for his paralysis during the writer's strike.

For the people who can't get enough of civil war re-enactments, LAist is there with the Berlin Wall coming down...on Wilshire. A better way to celebrate this anniversary is to read the opinion of someone who has actually been out of town a couple of times, such as Doug Bandow's column on The Spirit of 1989.

This race was the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life.

I'm too young to remember Secretariat. By the time Ruffian met her fate, I was old enough for it to break my heart. 

Since then, so many approaching true greatness but never quite making the cut, or living long enough (Go For Wand).

Nothing left to say... except "Horse of the Year".

These beautiful male pheasants - a green pheasant and a ring-necked pheasant -  were photographed in a backyard by homeowner Bob Eicholzin. Eicholzin lives a housing development called The Outpost just south of the Hollywood Reservoir.  

As many as seven different pheasants have been seen in the area and hopes are that some of their colorful friends may still be living in parts of Griffith Park. Pheasants haven't been seen in the park for almost a decade and concerns have been growing that human impacts to the park may have caused yet another species to disappear from park habitat.

From Mt. Wilson...

No mundatta Zenyatta.

The Breeders Cup is in Santa Anita today and tomorrow, and we at GP Wist are ready. And yes, GP Wist would make a great name for an entry.

Some notes:

Jim Rome takes his AM radio 570 Jungle show to the track today from 9 a.m. to noon and his Jim Rome is Burning ESPN show to the paddock later today, to hype the weekend. (I presume the garden paddock.) He also has a horse running today, Royal Punisher, right during airtime (not in a Breeders Cup race)*.

The Breeders Cup Juvenile is good to watch ever since Street Sense broke the BCJ jinx and went on to win the Kentucky Derby six months later. This year, favorite Lookin' at Lucky drew the extreme outside post position, 13. He's ridden by Santa Anita wizard Garrett Gomez. Also favored to hit the board is a Dutrow/Prado entry, D'Funnybone.

In the BC Classic Sunday, all eyes are on the filly Zenyatta. Zenyatta is 4 for 4 in 2009 and 13 for 13 in her storied career. She was sired by Street Cry, who also sired our favorite horse of the past decade, the aforementioned Street Sense. No filly or mare has ever won the Classic, and it is about time for that to happen.

My thinking is if there's a spoiler it will be Calvin Borel on Derby winner Mine that Bird. Borel hasn't been to Santa Anita much, where we race a little more...shall we say impolitely. He was not on Bird when Bird ran the worst race of his life, 12th and last, at...Santa Anita. But he knows his horse is the best distance horse. The track is a little firmer now, the way Borel likes it. If he looks good in the paddock, I am going with that Bird.

*UPDATE: Royal Punisher went out early and didn't hit the board; indeed, he finished DFL. Rome is indeed burning. "The good news is, it was only for about a hundred grand, with the whole world watching." Time to hit the Grey Goose.

Another Westside cluster

Ken Alpern of Mar Vista Neighborhood Council wonders why planning for the Expo Line isn't better integrated with the various stakeholders. Most notable is Alan Casdan's plan to develop Pico-Sepulveda-Exposition into yet another patented Westaside dystopic traffic nightmare without adequate mitigation measures.

What's better than 80 FAKE NEIGHBORHOOD WATCHES? A police chief of your very own! So where does the new Chief Beck head first? El Sereno, of course! "Come down to El Sereno Sr Ctr to meet Chief Beck. Meeting just started, w/ CM Jose Huizar, police, firefighters and explorers" the Mayor tweets. A quid pro quo? If I offer you the job...I promised them 80 Neighborhood...take care of my old hood...

A poll finds that Meg Whitman now has a good lead among Republicans, and that Poizner will be hurt in the GOP when voters find out he contributed to the Gore-Lieberman recount in 2000.

How does Carmen the Clown do business before a Council? Here's a transcript from 2006 in which Carmen the Clown's client H&C (a disposal company) got shook down by the City of Hawthorne for falling behind on payments to the city in the middle of a contract renegotiation. In part, it reads:

Carmen Trutanich: "Needless to say that this has not been an easy task to come up with $750,000 within the matter of space of a week. Those of you who are in business know that it's difficult for anyone to commit to that kind of money. But it's a show of good faith. I'd ask this council at this time to go back and in their wisdom grant this company the opportunity to pay you off and to continue being a good citizen of Hawthorne. This is a heck of a showing of good faith and I would...ah...Just give us the opportunity to pay you off."

Just give us the opportunity to call it finesse.

Birdies tell us that Latham & Watkins jacobys are concerned about a long-ago land use deal involving the LAUSD and Eli Broad. They should just read Bill Ring's Guerrilla Guide to LA Unified.

Now Robin Kramer gets to fill up op-ed space at the Times over whether Rob Greene kissed the Mayor's ass enough in a recent equally insane op-ed. It's like a conversation between two teabaggers arguing over how much Sarah Palin did for the police department of Wasilla.

The LA Conservancy has a halfway decent tour this Saturday. It's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod City takes a look at some South Bay/Westchester buildings from the 1960's, including the Theme Building at LAX, the Proud Bird, the old IBM building now home to Otis, and St. Jerome's Catholic Church. $30, and you have to drive yourself from point to point.

They say LA is hostile to business, but Bikini Espresso is quitting Torrance after three months. "I didn't want to go with the lingerie idea because I thought it would corrupt the original bikini idea," the owner told the Breeze. "I couldn't have them on the street in lingerie. Plus, Torrance fought me enough on the bikinis."

MT, Gumball machine for sale, Volvo Service Department, downtown, 11.4.09

LA County's serial nepotist Sharon Harper has been "removed from her position." I believe that means she has been reshuffuled, not fired.

Add another department head vacancy to the city of LA's embarrassing roster. Chronically wet-haired Greek Cecilia Estolano is moving to a title without a name at an Oakland community activist environmental group called "Green for All." Local media are trying to connect the dots to the recent AnsaldoBreda failure, but...in truth she didn't get much done at all at the CRA, really; several of the Mayor's pet eastside projects fell apart or remained unmoved under her watch. In the most poetic turn of phrase we've ever seen from the MayorSam blog, poster Red Spot says: "Thus, for those who navigate the choppy waters of Los Angeles politics, beware of another castoff from the sinking vessel that is the 'S.S. Tony Villar.'"

The Mayor also engaged in some make-work this week for city top admins, regarding runaway film production, which serves little purpose other than raising awareness for his candidate for CD2, Chris Essel. Weak.

And what does it say about Santa Clarita that the people who are adjacent but not in any city would rather remain unincorporated than join the burg?

And what does this say about our own? In New York's The Palm, they have frescoes of Liza Minelli and Frank Sinatra on the walls. In the new downtown LA restaurant, they have...wait for it...Mitch Englander, Carol Schatz, and Andrew Adelman. I finally figured out yesterday that downtown is one long, long ongoing Carey McWilliams quote that never ends...

My feeling about this weirdly inflated village in which I had come to make my home (haunted by memories of a boyhood spent in the beautiful mountain parks, the timberline country, of northwestern Colorado), suddenly changed after I had lived in Los Angeles for seven long years of exile. I have never been able to discover any apparent reason for this swift and startling conversion, but I do associate it with a particular occasion. I had spent an extremely active evening in Hollywood and had been deposited toward morning, by some kind soul, in a room at the Biltmore Hotel. Emerging next day from the hotel into the painfully bright sunlight, I started the rocky pilgrimage through Pershing Square to my office in a state of miserable decrepitude. In front of the hotel newsboys were shouting the headlines of the hour: an awful trunk-murder had just been commited; Aimee Semple McPherson had once again stood the town on its ear by some spectacular caper; a University of Southern California football star had been caught robbing a bank; a love-mart had been discovered in the Los Feliz Hills; a motion-picture producer had just wired the Egyptian government a fancy offer for permission to illuminate the pyramids to advertise a forthcoming production; and, in the intervals between these revelations, there was news about another prophet, fresh from the desert, who had predicted the doom of the city, a prediction for which I was morbidly grateful. In the center of the park, a little self-conscious of my evening clothes, I stopped to watch a typical Pershing Square divertissement: an aged and frowsy blonde, skirts held high above her knees, cheered by a crowd of grimacing and leering old goats, was singing a gospel hymn as she danced gaily around the fountain. Then it suddenly occurred to me that, in all the world, there neither was nor would ever be another place like this City of the Angels. here the American people were erupting, like lava from a volcano; here, indeed, was the place for ma - a ringside seat at the circus.--Cary McWilliams, Southern California Country, 1946

As Los Angeles and its electeds lose their collective mind, this piece from the musical 1776 finds John Adams, played by William Daniels,  asking the question we all should be asking:

2012 is two years early. The public and all other employees suffer loss of income and services while the DWP and mafia goon union leader Brian D'Arcy get RAISES.

Can you say racketeering? W-T-F?  Poor Griffith Park. There won't be anyone left to pick up the damn garbage, much less actually care for grounds. And if your park is any other park than Griffith, you are completely shit outta luck.

Get out of  Los Angeles while you still can.

From today's LA Times:
------

L.A. City Council OKs more pay cuts to help offset budget shortfall

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich will be the guest speaker at a community forum at the Autry National Center this Monday, November 9th. The meeting starts at 7:15pm with refreshments at 6:45. The forum is part of a series presented by the Loz Feliz Improvement Association.

After kicking Jack Weiss's pathetic ass in the election for Rocktard Delgadillo's job, Nuch's short time in office has been pretty ....rocky.

Question: Will Mulholland Terrace go to the event and clown around with Carmen?

Another far more important question:

Trutanich promised to shut down lawsuits resulting from illegal employee-related practices and get rid of employees who constitute potential future threats by their actions.

Given this, why does Chief Gary Newton of the Office of Public Safety -- who was just found guilty along with the City of Los Angeles of illegal and discriminatory hiring practices to the tune of more than $1.5 million -- still have his job and title?

As a follow-up: Why do the people Newton illegally hired and who were not qualified for their jobs at the time of hiring also still have those high-paying public safety jobs?

Go forth and multiply revenue....

Parking tickets are often issued without cause! And it took a USC student to find out!

The tweener election was generally kind to Republicans nationally, but the hillbilly putsch in NY-23 failed, epically.

Don't look for AP analyses in the local former fishwrap of record. Starting next week, Tribune Companies will not use AP wire copy as part of an experiment to determine if they can indeed do without it.

DWP commissioners cleared their agency's part of the way for the sake of a river park in Silver Lake. Sunnynook River Park still faces many hurdles, however.

While the city pleads poverty, it will borrow $9 million to acquire a property adjacent to El Sereno anyway.

The LAUSD passed five bonds in eleven years to build new schools and bring old ones up to snuff, but most of the bonds were passed while enrollments were declining. The Daily News acknowledges today that LAUSD enrollments have declined 10 percent since their peak seven years ago. Even so, LAUSD breaks ground on a new school today. When will the voters learn that the words "prison" "school" "affordable housing" and "transit" cost them money and must be weighed as carefully as candidates are?

A necropsy was completed on one of the two coyotes who attacked and killed Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell last week. The animal was found to be in good health all around but no information as to the contents of its stomach was released.

A great deal of the discussion about this incident centers on two areas - whether Ms. Mitchell was feeding the coyotes, and if the particular type of coyote had anything to do with the highly aggressive nature of the attack.


From the Chronicle-Herald's Nova Scotia edition:

Coyote wasn’t hungry or sick
Wild animal was in good health when it attacked Mitchell, necropsy shows

By LAURA FRASER Cape Breton Bureau ( lfraser@herald.ca)
Tue. Nov 3 - 4:45 AM

This barricade blocked traffic to the Skyline Trail entrance in Cape Breton Highlands National Park last week. (TERA CAMUS / Cape Breton Bureau) Taylor Mitchell

Pathologists say that preliminary tests on one of the coyotes that killed a Toronto folksinger in Cape Breton last week found the animal’s aggression came from neither hunger nor disease. "The pathologists confirmed that the animal was in good health," Chip Bird, a superintendent with Parks Canada, said of the results from the necropsy at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Prince Edward Island. "There is no evidence of physical injury, starvation or rabies."

Taylor Mitchell, 19, died after two wild coyotes attacked her while she was hiking alone in Cape Breton Highlands National Park last Tuesday. The singer-songwriter was airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Halifax but died overnight from several bite wounds. Park wardens and conservation officers had expanded their search for the other coyote, Mr. Bird said Monday. They had not been able to find it, or its body, near the scene of the attack on the Skyline Trail. An RCMP member reportedly shot the animal last Tuesday, but it hobbled off. Park officials could not say whether it left a blood trail that could be followed. Trackers have started looking on the Fishing Cove and Benjies Lakes trails in the Cape Breton Highlands. They have spotted other animals, but none have shown aggression or a lack of fear of humans.

Mr. Bird could not say whether human food had been found in the coyote’s stomach. Feeding wild animals can cause them to lose their fear of people. Anyone caught feeding wildlife in the park may be given a warning by a park ranger, but if the problem persists, someone could be fined or charged. "A fed animal is a dead animal, because eventually they will get into trouble," Mr. Bird said. Since Ms. Mitchell’s attack, Mr. Bird said that he has received calls from others who have had encounters with aggressive local coyotes. Those stories and the recent tragedy will likely force Parks Canada to make some changes to the warnings they give the public about animals. Signs now warn visitors about moose or bear, but Mr. Bird said that information about coyotes will also be given to the public. The Skyline Trail stayed closed Monday. Mr. Bird could not say when it would reopen. The RCMP could not be reached for comment.

In what is probably his last Mayoral decision of any note (unless he resigns), Mayor Villaraigosa named Charlie Beck as the new Chief of the LAPD this morning.

The LA Times has a bio on the new chief.  It is strange that Villaraigosa, who has been a creature of habit in automatically picking the minority from any pool of candidates, picked mainly white guys as finalists for this job. Curious.

What's most important for people who use City parks is whether or not the LAPD will commit to patrolling any of the problem parks in this City, and if so - WHEN? Beck supposedly has placed an emphasis on community policing during his career and we'd like to see a little of the well-financed love trickle down to some of the parks that need the most help.

Images from the urban wilderness interior
of Griffith Park on Halloween.

















Sunset over Cahuenga Peak...















Moonrise through an ancient eucalyptus...
















The City at night from Mt. Hollywood....

MT, View from Gold Line platform, Union Station.

Find out who LA's new police chief is at any blog in town at 11 a.m.

LA Eastside has a photo essay of the new Linea de Oro (Gold Line) extension. You would think from the photos that the Gold Line was open but it's not: it won't be until---cross your fingers---November 15. But linking LA's eastside (and LA Eastside) to Highland Park should be a boon to both. Among many business that will benefit is Wurstkuche in the arts district. Dakota at Curbed LA is worried about the safety of two traffic "boxes" at two intersections that can trap cars on the tracks.

LA Eastside also discusses the book Cholo Writing: Latino Gang Graffiti in Los Angeles, in which the claim is made that said graffiti is "the oldest form of name graffiti in the 20th century."

Connecting loose dots: AnsaldoBreda's partner to build those light rail cars was Shangri-La, an environmental company owned by billionaire Villaraigosa contributor Steve Bing. AnsaldoBreda has a fifty-year lease on LA property zoned for manufacture. Villaraigosa's new Deputy Mayor, Jay Carson, also worked for Shangri-La after playing a top communications role on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

The Daily News runs an agent at its website to get you to subscribe to its Twitter feed, but if you do you'll get dozens of sports items all posted at once. I'll try it when they have a few feeds, including one for city news. Even Beckford Parents segment better.

In the wake of what may turn out to be a major judgment on behalf of two cyclists against a motorist, the LA Times local blog samples some reader comments and wonders if cyclists are flaunting rules of the road excessively.

Silver Lake Library, LAPL's 72nd, opens November 16th. The Library will feature a new automated check-in system. It's at the corner of Glendale and the north end of Silver Lake Boulevard.

They do it differently in Wisconsin, where a woman calls 911 to report herself as a drunk driver. The woman was promptly arrested for...drunk driving.

Bill Rosendahl successfully pushed an order through LA's Public Safety Committee today that asked the Carmen the Clown to draft an Ordinance that would ban the practice of declawing cats in the city.

LAUSD announced that it will break ground on a new high school in South LA Wednesday. It will absorb overflow from Fremont and Jordan.

A blogger at the Republican agitprop blog MayorSam feels that the El Sereno Neighborhood Council is a "collectivist junta" under President Hugo Garcia.

The new Palms Neighborhood Council site is not navigable again. The old one has no new info since September even though there's a board meeting Wednesday.

As local pols and the job-mindful scribes tripped over themselves to honor departing LAPD Chief Bratton last week, Adam Schiff actually outdid everyone, putting a measure before the US House of Representatives to do so.

Billy, bonged...

The featured story on the front page of the Daily News this morning was on the stalled elephant habitat at the Los Angeles Zoo. The bottom line: the Zoo is trying to spend $42 million dollars to house up to eleven elephants (but probably far fewer, and it currently houses only one; the Zoo has named him Billy). That's almost $4 million per pachyderm--a rate even more expensive than affordable housing construction for homeless humans.

Actor and animal activist Robert Culp has brought suit against the Zoo and wants construction halted, for iffy reasons, but really because he doesn't like the idea of Asian elephants in Angeleno captivity.

Tom LaBonge says, "I'm not satisfied until this project is completed and the proper number of elephants call Griffith Park their home."

(The "proper number of elephants" would be zero, of course, as not only are elephants not native to North or South America, they are not even native to any part of the globe situated as far north as Los Angeles.)

The Zoo maintains a website devoted to pimping the project called "Billy's Home." The site seems to be having problems currently. In February, the LA Times (of course) endorsed spending $42 million to kidnap elephants and bring them to Los Angeles for the sake of entertainment.

Alternative title:  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Strikes City Parks

You are hiking on a trail in Griffith Park in the hills above the girls camp, Camp Hollywoodland. You just saw some guy toss a lit cigarette into the brush. A small fire erupts and the guy tries to stomp it out. He fails, and simply runs off so as not to be caught.  The fire is suddenly way out of control..... Who you gonna call?

Think now - there was a sign at the bottom of the trail that gave you the information you need. It said:

WTF?

WTF?   WTF?   WTF?

Oh-kaaaaaay........ so who in the heck do you call?  Damn good question.  There are at least three different numbers to call if you need help in Griffith Park, and none of them is 9-1-1.

How can this be a safe situation? More importantly, what bureaucratic idiot allowed this to happen?


The real answer is a three-parter:

1. The 24 hour park emergency number is 323-913-7390.

This has been the case for ten years or so. It was set up that way to act as the 9-1-1 for parks.

If you call 9-1-1 on your cell phone, the California Highway Patrol answers the phone and unless you have a physical numeric address for your location more specific than "on a trail in Griffith Park", they are probably going to tell you to call the Park Rangers.

When you call 323-913-7390 today, it rings to the Office of Public Safety who is supposed to be patrolling all parks including the larger Regional parks in conjunction with the Park Rangers. Depending upon the dispatcher at OPS and how they perceive the importance of the call, you may or may not get any response. An illegal off-road vehicle, a runaway horse, a person smoking in the brush may not get any response from OPS at all. Of course, now that Recreation and Parks has just about destroyed any ability of the Park Ranger Division to patrol parks, you will likely not get a response from them either.


2. The direct line for the Park Rangers is now 323-644-6661.

Parks users asked for this number in Regional Parks because Park Rangers will answer the calls for an illegal off-road vehicle, a runaway horse, and a person smoking in the brush if they have someone available.


As for the third emergency number on the signs?

3. The direct line for the Office of Public Safety is 213-978-4670.

Now you need to ask the question, why is this third number here when I get OPS if I dial the first number?  The answer is politics. Both the General Manager of Recreation and Parks, Jon Kirk Mukri, and the Chief Financial Officer, Regina Adams, are both administrators from the General Services Department - the Department that houses OPS. OPS was handed control of most of the City parks as well as City libraries and public buildings as part of a cost-savings/efficiency measure initiated by Wendy Greuel and Jim Hahn. OPS and its backers promised to do the same services the Library officers and Park Rangers did, but do it faster and better.

Today, there is a lot of question whether OPS is even meeting the old level of service, much less exceeding it. Politically, however, no one is allowed to even intimate that OPS is anything but number-one-with-a-gun. Assistant General Manager Kevin Regan was tasked with dumbing down the Park Rangers while talking up the Office of Public Safety, which he reportedly does incessantly.

Ultimately all of this political posturing - Rec and Parks Administration making stupid decisions without consulting their own department's park safety specialists, the Park Ranger Division - has resulted in yet a third emergency number on signs in Regional parks without regard for public safety.


Time-tested public safety best-practices show that 9-1-1 works because people do not have to think about who to call in an emergency.

Three little numbers: 9-1-1.

People in parks are faced with three different 10-digit phone numbers. The only possible response from anyone trying to figure out who to call is W-T-F?

Election Day for various stray races around the country is tomorrow. The Republican's new Contract with America is Glenn Beck's far right fringe document, the "9/12 Principles" pledge. It includes such tenets at "My spouse and I are the ultimate authority; the Government is not." The leading far right fringe candidate on view this mini-cycle, Doug Hoffman, who helped to purge a woman's rights and gay rights GOP candidate from the party, and who should thereby win tomorrow in a Congressional district that is 94% white and mostly Republican, has taken the pledge.

The Mayor has put off his decision on the next LA Police Chief one more day. Similarly, the Times and Daily News have also put off attempting local journalism for one more day.

At the Times, Rob Greene does a press release for Mayor Villaraigosa.

At the Daily News, Rick Orlov does a press release for Carmen the Clown.

Republican County DA Steve Cooley is getting sued by his own district attorney union. In Cooleyland, DAs have even been transferred for being gay, the suit alleges. The union calls the practice "freeway therapy."

A potentially mentally-ill woman was released by County sheriff's at 1:25 a.m. September 17 from the County's most rural station, Malibu/Los Hills, with no cell phone--and promptly disappeared. A motorcycle rally was held on the woman's behalf to raise awareness of her disappearance.

Local far right fringe politician Phil Jennerjahn has declared that he's running for Congress in 2010. But Waxman can relax for now; Phil hasn't decided what District he wants to run for. Jennerjahn, a former mayoral candidate, writes for local Republican agitprop blog MayorSam.

MT, Scrub Jay, Los Feliz, 10.31.09


I trust your iMac has already told you what time it is.

Stephen Sample did indeed boost the academic reputation of USC. He's leaving after 19 years. He's 69 and has Parkinson's but remains highly energetic.

The Mayor announces his pick for top cop tomorrow.

Insight or spurned sour grapes? Novell's pr blog chastises the City of Los Angeles for going with Google:

"Like the LA Police department and others, we continue to doubt the economics and security of the City's decision to move to a Google system. The City Council was presented with clear evidence that Google posed a very significant risk to the security of City and citizen data, much of it highly confidential. In addition, independent financial data showed that the new system will actually cost more, not less.

"With the City facing a massive budget deficit, the speculated budget benefits of switching to this untested application are enticing, but as a recent independent Los Angeles City Administrative Officer report has stated, the proposed system under consideration will actually cost taxpayers an additional $1.5 million in the first year. There are significant costs to migrating, training and securing Google Apps ."

The assault on the city's decision is unusual enough that the city's Controller Wendy Greuel should look into Google's successful bid.

How much will it matter that our deal with AnsaldoBreda of Italy for 100 Metro rail cars has been scuttled? It already has: trips back and forth to Italy to negotiate this contract have been treated as virtual second honeymoons by MTA officials. A year ago, on an existing contract, they took along an accountant with paperwork to sign, and the last day of his two-week visit, he discovered that he left it all at home. Mike Antonovich has never liked the firm. The Mayor, however, mopes at the result.

CostCo wants a location at Warner Center in Woodland Hills, the Daily News reports. Because there's not quite enough traffic there yet. Zine supports. The development would bridge the Topanga and Promenade malls. CostCo says that LA could support "up to a dozen" CostCos---there are currently four in the city, but none south of Atwater.

Many local Republicans, office holders and voters alike, are ashamed to admit their real party affiliation. Cooley was, Carmen the Clown was, etc. Now two candidates for council in Rancho Palos Verdes have been discovered to be Running While Republican after pretending to be Democrats. One was endorsed by Janice Hahn, which doesn't surprise us at all.

The Department of Recreation and Parks seems to have some kind of funding stream for benches of late. This story comes courtesy of Martha Benedict of the Debs Park Advisory Board:

The Debs Park Advisory Board is pleased to announce that two new benches have been installed at one of the most dramatic vista spots in Debs Park. Board members worked with Rec & Parks to find the right place to spend some of the department's limited resources for the benefit of hikers. Last summer, Jorge de Loera, Andy Ho and Bill Lopez travelled around the park with Debs PAB chair Martha Benedict and selected on the intersection of three trails directly above the Audubon Center.

This morning Rec & Parks staff Dan, Duane, Ricardo, Adan and Jose along with community service workers Juan and Richard installed the terra cotta benches on previously poured concrete bases. Duane was the epoxy man who cemented the benches in place with help from the others. Jose operated the forklift with skilled precision to place the seating. Afterwards, staff arrived to bolt the benches to the bases with L-brackets.

The two new benches provide a resting place with dramatic views of downtown, the Southwest Museum and the San Gabriel Mountains. Debs PAB members Michael Perez, Ann Walnum, Nancy Wyatt, Tom Marble, Sybil Venegas, Jeff Chapman and Martha Benedict all participated in the planning of this installation.

Many thanks to the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks for this enhancement to Debs Park.

See photos of the installation here.  (Click any thumbnail to see the enlargement, click next/previous to move through the photos, click index to return to the thumbnails.)

The crew of Heroes set up for a holiday-appropriate shoot at Mineral Wells picnic area on Thursday, October 29. 

MT, Wacko Jesus, 11.04.08

Colson Whitehead in the NYTimes: "Simply add -ist to any oddball or unlikely root word, and run with it. You’d be surprised." She did and I am.

Scary on Halloween: you probably don't bank at California National Bank, but if you do, the FDIC has moved you over to US Bank. You won't notice a thing except longer lines than usual today as depositors express their curiosity over the fact that California National Bank failed yesterday, and was seized by the FDIC. In LA, the bank has branches downtown, on La Brea, Fairfax, Larchmont, Beverly at Serrano, and in Los Feliz. But recent expansion out to the evil inland empire did not do the bank well.

The Times takes note of Tamar Galatzan's endorsement of Paul Krekorian over Chris Essel in the CD2 race. Some of those who couldn't stand Galatzan in the primary suddenly find her thrilling and sexy in the runoff. Walter Moore crone Mary Benson also endorsed Krekorian.

Tibby Rothman at the LA Weekly slanted the Trutanich v. AEG story in such a way that she failed to mention the fact that Carmen the Clown threatened Councilmember Jan Perry with jail--which is the real core of the dust-up at City Hall.

If you wonder how all the noise and funk regarding LA's Bike Plan is going down, an excellent summary of Wednesday's Bike Plan meeting is here at LA Streets Blog.

At LACMA unframed: scary art in LACMA's collection. LACMA also has a costume ball on Halloween; sorry, sold out.

Greetings on a gorgeous Friday!

For more information on any of the items below, please visit the Council District 4 website at: www.tomlabonge.com Remember to turn your clocks back one hour on Saturday night. Daylight Savings Time begins at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1. The Los Angeles Fire Department recommends checking the batteries in your smoke detectors while changing your clocks.

- Last Friday, Councilmember LaBonge and many school and community leaders watched the John Marshall High School Barristers beat the Abraham Lincoln High School Tigers, 28-0, in the homecoming game on Marshall's brand new artificial turf football field. The Councilmember, a proud Marshall alum, was instrumental in the push to install the new track and field to replace facilities that were too small when the school first opened in 1931.

- On Saturday, more than 60 volunteers from the Gay For Good community service organization worked with Council Office staff, city parks personnel, TreePeople and the Hollywood United Methodist Church to help clean up, plant and restore the heavily used Runyon Canyon Park. Volunteers spent several hours sandbagging, mulching and repairing eroded surfaces around the park in preparation for the coming rainy season. The day concluded with the planting of a new tree in the field by the Fuller Gate entrance to the park. Thank you to everyone who participated - you are truly angels in the City of Angels.

- The public is welcome to see and touch the largest section of the Berlin Wall outside of its home city. It is on display now at 5900 West Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile. For more information on this fascinating commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, visit: http://www.wallproject.org/

- Councilmember LaBonge will hold his fifth CD4 Schools Collaborative next Thursday, Nov. 5. These conferences bring together staff from city schools and City Hall to iron out solutions to issues that effect them both. Thank you to the Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax for hosting this important event. For more information, email: Mary.D.Rodriguez@lacity.org.

- The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is holding a public budget workshop on Saturday, November 21, 2009, at 9:30 AM at the LADWP headquarters,111 North Hope Street, CafeteriaConferenceCenter. LADWP officials will present information regarding the department's multi-year financial plans and the adopted budgets for the 2009/2010 fiscal year. This will be an excellent opportunity for you to learn about the current budget year and its challenges, and to provide your input directly to LADWP executive management.

Have a fun, safe Halloween weekend and continue to enjoy and love Los Angeles!

Whoops. Whoops. Whoops.

John Shallman's strategy over these past few months to get Chris Essel a nice job with a nice salary has been fairly cynical at best.

First, he has his candidate denounce Kevin James as a racist so she could opt out of a debate before the primary (by the way, she'll be appearing on his show at 9 p.m. tonight after a sudden change of heart indicating she knows how far down she is).

Then, in a move that looked like pure desperation to many observers, sniffing an opportunity to racially polarize the district at the expense of its considerable but minoritized Armenian population, he gave Essel the green light to attend a fundraiser hosted by folks with ties to pro Turkish causes.

And now for the jewel in his princess's tiara...

John Shallman tries to claw the eyes out of former opponent Tamar Galatzan on Chris Essel's behalf.

“Christine Essel never asked for Tamar Galatzan’s endorsement. Instead, she asked her to think about supporting a plan to break up the largest and most dysfunctional school district in America,” Essel spokesman John Shallman said. “Unfortunately, Tamar wouldn’t even consider it. Now she’s trying to protect the bloated LAUSD bureaucracy by issuing a political endorsement of a fellow professional politician who opposes district reform.”

What any of this has to do with the race in CD2 is very hard to understand, especially in the context of Chris Essel's inability even to name a single school in the District at a pre-primary debate.

Originally a City Hall denizen who found favor among both Liberals and Lite Republicans like his former client Bob Hertzberg, Shallman was always held at arm's length by City Hall subsequent to 2005, and outraged the city when he put Laura Chick's name on a Meausre R (term limits extention) support flyer in 2006---a measure Chick in fact opposed. Then he found a Republican rehab project in Long Beach named Carmen Trutanich and won a race in which Trutanich crusaded against City Hall--with the considerable help of John Thomas, a kind of right-wing Mike Trujillo wunderkind whose family is well connected to Republicans and also development money. (Unfortunately for the city, Trutanich forgot how to stop crusading against City Hall once he occupied it; like a punchdrunk boxer, he kept throwing uppercuts at Shallman's phantoms long after his manager left ringside.)

Now Shallman has found a new bottom with the Essel campaign--and fairly blown Essel's chances of a comeback in a single bitter press release. Once thinking that the vote would split favorably along gender lines for whoever came out on top between Essel and Tamar Galatzan, Shallman, on hearing that the other woman in the race has endorsed Essel's opponent, now digs in and attacks the one endorsement his candidate needed to have a chance at victory.

Shallman--who describes himself at Facebook as a political "liberal" and describes his religious views as "Jewish - conservative"--has always shied away from selling his candidates as cerebral people; it's the one persistent theme of his ideas on positioning. Hertzberg came off as a huggable lug in 2005--a lug definitely something he is not--and Trutanich of course came across as a street-wise lug whose lack of wisdom was masked to prospective endorsers by slick leave-behinds. But the aw-shucks style appears to be most at odds with Essel, who is indeed a bright and cerebral candidate, but hasn't had much opportunity to show it in the campaign, and has even been fairly stifled by Shallman, whom she is beholden to because of her campaign inexperience.

One political consultant told yours truly of Shallman: "He doesn't seem to want to kill it like most managers do. He seems to want to do the worst while he hopes for the best and just barely make it across the finish line." It's now very doubtful that Essel will make it across, even though she has nearly twice as much money as her opponent Paul Krekorian does.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about what actually transpired leading up to a rare coyote attack that left a beautiful, young up-and-coming singer-songwriter dead at age 19.

From CBC News:



Listen to one of Taylor's songs here.

LA, mutha. Chivo, Snoop et al. in 1993.


Taschen has published a history of LA in photographs, and the Spanish newspaper El Pais has a good slide show going back to 1896. You won't be disappointed. Times book review head David Ulin is listed as the author.

Janice Hahn purportedly has an early lead in the 2010 race for Lieutenant Governor of the State. She has apparently given up her hopes to dislodge Jane Harman anytime soon. What makes the Lt Gov race intriguing, even tricky for Hahn is that Bill Simon is interested on the Republican side and has far deeper early support than Ms. Hahn on the Democratic. Simon will talk to a couple of Lincoln Clubs in upcoming weeks. Hahn supported Hillary in 2008 and another Clinton is likely to return the favor.

The County Supes don't want scribes nor anyone else to peacefully assemble anywhere they might hear news in the County building. “The public is welcome here, it’s the press who is not,” Assistant Chief Executive Ryan Alsop said earlier this month. But now the public's not welcome either. It's the same kind of media relations Mayor Villaraigosa's office employs towards scribes unwilling to kiss their ass 100% of the time.

It really wasn't Al Gore after all--it was UCLA that invented the Internets.

By Will Campbell

Minus the blood and gore and crushed corpses and police caution tape, not much has changed in 30 years. High up and deep within Griffith Park the scene remains otherwise no different from how it looked on the evening of October 31, 1976, when tragedy literally befell a young Hollywood couple, inconceivably crushed by a nearby tree that toppled over upon them while they made love upon a picnic table just off winding Mt. Hollywood Drive.

As lurid as it was inexplicable, the deaths of 22-year-old musician Rand Garrett and aspiring actress Nancy Jeanson, 20, were nonetheless a brief blip on the radars of local newscasts and newspapers, by and large laid to rest after their cremated remains were scattered upon the table and surroundings where the childhood sweethearts died in each others' arms.

Though their ashes have long since blown away, what hasn't been so quick to dissipate is the legend that has grown up around strange events and eerie occurrences  — especially around the anniversary of their demise — that witnesses claim began happening shortly after their deaths and purportedly continue to occur to this day, bolstering a belief that the anguished spirits of Rand and Nancy are wandering never too far away from the picnic table that simultaneously brought them together and tore them apart.

"People thought I was damn crazy," says retired city tree trimmer Morris Carl when he tried to explain what happened to him a few days after authorization had been given to clear the fallen tree and he was tapped for the duty. "I drove up there with a job to do and I aimed to do it. What I didn't figure on was getting scared out of my wits!"

Carl is quick to add that up to that day he never gave much thought to whether ghosts were real. "But from that point on I certainly don't give any thought that they aren't," he says.

According to the incident report he filed with his supervisor later that evening, Carl arrived at the site at 11:40 a.m. on November 7. He was to be joined by two other Bureau of Street Services Tree Division workers with a large truck and loader to remove the material later in the afternoon but until then he was charged with sawing up the branches and trunk of the large sycamore tree into more manageable pieces. Only a few minutes into it he wrote that was overcome with a strange sensation.

"In my statement I said that I felt funny. What happened was I'd sawed off the crown of the tree when from out of nowhere I got hit with these real strong chills so hard it was as if I was coming down with the fastest flu ever. I tried to shake it off and get back to work, but each time I'd fire up the saw and get near the tree I'd get real cold and hear this weird moaning and crying. So I'd stop the saw and listen and it would go away. But then I'd start her up again and it would come back. Finally I was freezing so bad I had to go to the truck and get my coat."

That's when Carl wrote that the fallen tree started shaking violently.

MT, Oak and bench, Vermont Canyon trail, 10.28.09

I took a walk in Griffith Park yesterday, something I haven't done in a while. I walked all the way from our house--it's about 1.5 miles to the Vermont park entrance. Then I did what has become my usual route over the years, up from Vermont Canyon Tennis Complex to the fork, and west along the rim of the hillside to the redwood grove across from the Greek Theater.

The thing I noticed: the silence. There were not even airplanes in the sky. There were no hikers. It was like taking a walk along the shore of an isolated lake in the wilderness. I could even hear distant but occasionally perturbed rattlesnake rattles and certainly intermittent cawing of hawks.

The best thing that happened after the fire: this bench in the photo, at a base of a lone oak at the fork in the Vermont Canyon Tennis trail. For years I've been stopping at that tree anyway when it is either too hot or too dry or both. Now, there's a bench there. I know, it looks a little like a crypt with a bench on it. But the bench is simple and functional and doesn't have any of those stupid dividers that prevent people from lying down. The bench works in that spot perfectly.

...it seems irresponsible for Recreation and Parks to start a new Interpretive program which prioritizes interpretive work at the expense of public safety and visitor services.

On a hill just above Kagel Canyon, a year's regrowth from the Marek Fire is dwarfed by an entire mountain completely charred by the Station Fire. Looking accross Little Tujunga Canyon toward historic Gold Creek Station as the sun sets, an incredibly lucky homestead lies at the center of a rare green patch between the two devastating fires.

'Lucky' is the operative word. Many of the people who lost their homes in the Sky Terrace mobile home park during the Marek Fire still haven't received any significant aid because the inferno was not officially declared an "emergency" by any level of government.

Debbie Lopez, I'll take Mulholland, Anaheim, 10.26.09

Hallelulia, the opinion section of the former fishwrap of record is coming closer to a mea culpa on Carmen the Clown.

Eleven days ago, your scribe on the terrace said that Carmen the Clown doesn't understand his job.

Now you don't only have to take his (and City Council's) word for it: the man who wrote the book on the postwar political history of Los Angeles now says it too.

Unlike me, however, Raphael Sonnenshein thinks Carmen the Clown still has the potential to be something other than a Palin Republican from Long Beach. (Maybe longtime Sonnenshein logroller Jim Newton put him up to it that; the Times wouldn't be ready ready to acknowledge the absurdity of its Trutanich endorsement just yet.)

In a similar vein...remember how we reported that the former fishwrap of record's catastrophic six-month drop in readers really owed to being obliged to report circ figures more honestly? Well, the same thing has happened to the County's homeless count; the homeless count drop is to the point of incredulity, 38% in the past two years.

The reason homeless counts have been padded so long is so that service organizations could more easily validate the government agency funding they receive. But social scientists have observed that this practice encourages service organizations to perpetuate social maladies rather than eliminate them, and now they more closely observe the census methods.

Does anyone in their right mind really believe in this tough economy that homelessness is trending down?

No, it's merely that homeless-count census takers are trending more accurately than previously. (This is also something for your scribe has been calling for a long time in his various assaults on the city's homeless industrial complex.)

All in all, a good morning for the terrace.

Pretty shocking story out of Toronto after the recent local outpouring of grief over the poor, defenseless coyotes in Griffith Park.  Just to reiterate: Coyotes are wild animals, people. They're not dogs. They're talented predators. Never feed them!
----
Coyotes kill woman on hike in Canadian park

TORONTO — Two coyotes attacked a Canadian woman while she was hiking alone in a national park in eastern Canada, and authorities said she died Wednesday of her injuries. The victim was identified as Taylor Mitchell, 19, a promising singer-songwriter from Toronto who was touring her new album on the East Coast. She was hiking solo on a trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia on Tuesday when the attack occurred. She was airlifted to a Halifax hospital in critical condition and died Wednesday morning, authorities said.

Coyotes, which also are known as prairie wolves, are found from Central America to the United States and Canada. Wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft said coyote attacks are extremely rare because the animals are usually shy. Bancroft, a retired biologist with Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources, said it’s possible the coyotes thought Mitchell was a deer or other prey. “It’s very unusual and is not likely to be repeated,” Bancroft said. “We shouldn’t assume that coyotes are suddenly going to become the big bad wolf.” Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokeswoman Brigdit Leger said other hikers heard Mitchell’s screams for help on Tuesday and called emergency police dispatchers. Police who were in the area reached the scene quickly and shot one of the animals, apparently wounding it. But the wounded animal and a companion coyote managed to get away. Paul Maynard of Emergency Health Services said Mitchell already was in critical condition when paramedics arrived on the scene and had multiple bite wounds over her entire body. “She was losing a considerable amount of blood from the wounds,” he said. An official with Parks Canada said they blocked the entrance to the trail where Mitchell was attacked and were trying to find the animals to determine what prompted such an unusual attack. “There’s been some reports of aggressive animals, so it’s not unknown,” said Helene Robichaud, the park’s superintendent. “But we certainly never have had anything so dramatic and tragic.”

Mitchell was an up-and-coming folk and country musician who was nominated for a 2009 Canadian Folk Music Award in the Young Performer of the Year category. “Words can’t begin to express the sadness and tragedy of losing such a sweet, compassionate, vibrant, and phenomenally talented young woman,” Lisa Weitz, Mitchell’s manager, said in an e-mail. “She just turned 19 two months ago, and was so excited about the future.”

On the Net:  Taylor Mitchell’s Web site: www.taylormitchell.ca    www.myspace.com/taylormitchellband

"uh....Wilco Tango Foxtrot...?..."

Nice live action WTF twitpic of that snapped cable on the Oakland Bay Bridge.

Bill Rosendahl thinks he's the FAA! He asks for a report on a recent runway incursion at LAX! WTF will a report to the city on a runway incursion prove? Will Carmen the Clown threaten to jail Federal air traffic controllers? That's the weirdest motion ever...this week, anyway...

And the Weekly asks WTF is up with Fabien Nunez's being cleared in the State ethics probe, after "spending $155,000 in campaign funds on lavish international travel, wining and dining in destinations such as Bordeaux, France and buying high-end boutique gifts."

Finally, WTF is up with Kevin Roderick, who mocked the Weekly's "overheated city is falling apart while the Valley suffers meme" a couple of weeks ago. No, the city's not falling apart, not at all!...Nor is the Valley suffering!...not at all!...

Don't ya just love it when you get these meeting "notices" with no real notice?  This important meeting is tonight!  More information is available in this earlier article, but the gist is that the National Parks Service is considering thinking of making what is basically the Station Fire burn area a National Recreation Area (NRA). An NRA would better protect the San Gabriel Mountains back country, improve water quality, connect communities to the mountains and improve recreational access with a new urban parks and trails system.

Get there if you can and vote for an NRA for the San Gabriels!

----------------------------
The National Park Service is conducting a “special resource study” 
of portions of the San Gabriel River watershed and the San Gabriel Mountains.

Many people missed the initial public meetings because of the Station Fire. If you didn't get a chance to attend one of the earlier public meetings, please join us on:

Wednesday, October 28
7pm to 9pm
Northeast Valley City Hall Auditorium
7747 Foothill Blvd, Tujunga, CA 91042

Read up on Alternatives A, B and C and then come tell the National Park Service (NPS) what you think of their alternatives for the Angeles National Forest.  For more info, go to:  http://www.nps.gov/pwro/sangabriel/

Ash from the Station Fire blows off the entire south face of Mt. Lukens above Sunland-Tujunga yesterday, completely obscuring the view of La Crescenta in the distance above Foothill Blvd and the 210 freeway.

Zahniser didn't dig too deeply in this item on Moctesuma Esparza's departure from the board of the City Employees’ Retirement System. For instance, not only does Esparza have a conflict in approving deals that benefit his own clients, but he is widely disliked through city government, and nearly anyone in any department Esparza has touched has tales to tell.

Stephen Box has been all over the selection of Google as the City's email provider at a cost of $5.9 million first year. Asks if LA "negotiated up". It does seem a bit cher for a service most of us can access for free.

Unbelievable: yesterday Councilman Richard Alarcon called for a "constituency outreach program." Would that be, like, Councilmembers talking to citizens?

Union busting went a step further at LAUSD yesterday as the District's board approved a plan that allows parents to put their child's school on the auction block.

The city's top five neighborhoods for trick-or-treaters, according to nobody in particular: Venice, Los Feliz, Westwood, Silver Lake, Beverly Hills. Being a good trick-or-treater neighborhood indicates desirable homes to realtors. LA's high-tier real estate rebounded this summer a little better than its low-tier real estate. But it's still among the top losers of value across the decade among major American cities--only San Francisco's plunge was worse.

Great-tailed Grackles pimping for goodies outside a Panda Express near Hansen Dam today.


Nary a Rock Dove in sight.

Lieberman helps McCain to wail

A damn windy terrace it is, too. The monster winds will be with us until late tomorrow morning.

Joe the Liar Lieberman, who had previously pledged support for universal health care reform, now won't even support an opt-out public option. Is anyone surprised?

(I thought Reid knew how to count votes. Seems to me this is the one you count even before you start counting.)

Sarah Palin's rescue candidate, Doug Hoffman, turns out to be a complete dummy. He doesn't even know what the issues in his district are, let alone have an opinion on them. But Palin's support has given him a bump in the polls, and he is likely to win in a week and take the GOP down with him in a runoff.

Yesterday you learned that the LA Times lost eleven percent of its customers in the past six months.

Today you see why: the editors have surrendered the paper's guts to the arcane and the promotional. There are hundreds of distinguished writers in Los Angeles who care passionately for issues and who can put together meaningful opinion pieces. Many of these find the city's decline to be as precipitous as the newspaper's. But today the Times doesn't have any space available for distinguished writers who write on real issues.

No, today it surrenders its space to a lame duck, our opt-out chief of police Bill Bratton, who writes something to the next chief of police (who has not even been selected yet) on Special Order 40 that he could have easily saved for a private memo were he not such a glutton for free publicity and media space.

Incidentally, I support Bratton's position, but the way the Times op-ed page continues to avail promotional space to the issue while denying the thousands who disagree with SO40 exist explains much about why the paper's opinion space has gone completely to seed and isn't respected by anyone of agency anymore except as a space to game.

Meanwhile, online, the Times surrenders spacetime to Patt Morrisson, who just loves to ignore real civic issues while promoting utterly arcane ones. Today she wants you all to know that Maria Shriver is a bad example--which won't lower your water and power bill, nor bring Carmen the Clown in line, nor even sell a single newspaper, as TMZ and Entertainment tonight can cover the celebrity beat far better than Patt can.

For an alternative read, forget the jokers at the Daily News occasional opinion page. Their "question of the week" this week is regarding whether the city should crack down on illegal street vendors--an issue for neighborhood councils.

MT, Miemies on the Terrace, Echo Park, 8.21.09

SLAP is organizing a petition effort to lower Council salaries by half. The hurdle is very high: 240,000 signatures in LA are required. The language had better be bullet-proof and allow for existing contracts to be fulfilled.

Even Ron Kaye goes out of his way to call Carmen the Clown "a tough guy from San Pedro." That's campaign literature speaking--Janice Hahn used the same formulation, only she dropped the "San." My own experience of Carmen the Clown is that he's a Republican hack from Long Beach who registered on the radar of local political consultants when he successfully defended USC against rape claims.

How can the LA Conservancy not save Van Nuys Fire Station 39?

Jane Goodall comes to Calabasas to promote the garden cultivated at the headwaters of the mighty Los Angeles River.

Maria Shriver, aka Arnold's wife, certainly exhibits a Kennedyesque sense of entitlement when driving.

At the grand opening of the new police headquarters, the LAPD hung the flag the wrong way. Big deal.

A bigger deal: Gloria Molina demands "swift and decisive action" in the Sharon Harper nepotism matter. That kind of swift decisiveness won't be coming from Molina herself, though, because she admits she doesn't know what kind of discipline will be imposed on Harper.

Republicans Mayor Sam and Mayor Jennerjahn continue to make politics in CD2, a community that's 60% Democrat, far more acrimonious than they need to be, at the expense of goodwill in the community itself. These two have relentlessly brought conflict and even shame to a formerly politically vibrant community in their internal feuding. The truth is that there isn't more than red hair's worth of difference between Krekorian and Essel, and even Tamar's most special redeeming trait was that she happened to actually live in the District. The decision really has been like choosing between three differently colored bowling balls, and it's time for both these shameless and unrepentant political hacks to grow up, recognize that the differences in the candidates is virtually nil, and get on with the business of exposing matters of real civic importance.

Yesterday Rick Orlov blogged that Richard Close of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association endorsed Paul Krekorian. That organization has about 75 members tops at any given meeting and way under 1,000 members. Does that mean if a blog has 75 readers a day and way over 1,000 readers a month that Orlov should also report blog endorsements? Just asking.

The Theodore Payne Foundation is one of our favorite places to purchase native plants, and they have one of the best plant galleries around on their web site.... so how can you go wrong with an important public presentation sponsored by them?  You can't.


Oh yeah- there are some guys who know a little something about the Urban-Wildland Interface talking at it this presentation, too.  Didn't we have a little local issue related to the U-WI around Southern California just recently? Hard to remember. Anyway, we highly suggest the following public forum:


Southern California Wildfires: 
Protecting Our Homes and the Natural Environment

A special event with Richard W. Halsey and Jon E. Keeley

Co-Sponsored by the Theodore Payne Foundation and the City of Glendale Public Works Department

On Saturday, November 7, from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m., the Theodore Payne Foundation and The City of Glendale Public Works Department will present an important and timely lecture that is free to the public --  Southern California Wildfires: Protecting our Homes and the Natural Environment. Richard W. Halsey and Jon E. Keeley, Ph.D., two of the region's most respected experts on fire, local ecology and post-fire regeneration, will present science- and research-based information about wildfires and how to best adapt one's home environment.

Richard W. Halsey is the Director of the California Chaparral Institute, a nonprofit research and educational organization focusing on the ecology of California's shrubland plant communities, wildland fire, and how Mediterranean-type ecosystems have helped shape human culture. He has given more than 300 presentations over the past five years concerning chaparral ecology, how communities can adapt to fire-prone environments, and the importance of nature education. Mr. Halsey taught biology for over thirty years in both public and private schools and was honored as Teacher of the Year for San Diego City Schools in 1991.Mr. Halsey earned undergraduate degrees from the University of California in environmental studies and anthropology. During graduate work he received teaching credentials in life, physical and social science and a Master's degree in education. He has also been trained as a Type II wildland firefighter. The second edition of his book, Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California, was awarded the 2008 Best Nonfiction-Local Interest Book by the San Diego Book Awards Association.

Dr. Keeley is a Research Ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, stationed at Sequoia National Park. He earned his Ph.D. in botany and ecology from the University of Georgia in 1977. He also holds a Master's degree in biology from San Diego State University. Prior to this appointment in Sequoia National Park, Dr. Keeley served one year in Washington, D.C. as director of the ecology program for the National Science Foundation. A professor of biology at Occidental College for 20 years, Dr. Keeley has over 250 publications in national and international scientific journals and books. His research has focused on ecological impacts of wildfires as well as other aspects of plant ecology, including rare plants, rare habitats such as vernal pools, and plant physiology. In 1985 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a Fellow of the Southern California Academy of Sciences and an Honorary Lifetime Member of the California Botanical Society. He has served on the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning Environmental Review Board, the State of California Natural Communities Conservation Program (NCCP) Board of Scientific Advisors.

Clark Magnet High School Auditorium
4747 New York Avenue
La Crescenta, CA 91214

November 7, 2009, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Thousands of west coat migratory birds are being threatened by an unprecedented plankton bloom off the Oregon coast. Many of the birds at risk migrate all along the West Coast, stopping along the Los Angeles River next to Griffith Park where we're lucky to have some of the best bird watching around.

Unusually warm and turbulent seas have caused a normal-occurring  phytoplankton called Akashiwo Sanguinea to be carried to the surface near the Oregon coast at levels well above normal ambient measurements, reaching millions per liter in the hardest hit areas. The byproduct of this bloom is an algae foam that basically acts like a detergent and strips the oils from bird feathers. The result is that water-based birds lose both their buoyancy and oily weatherproofing, often drowning or dying of exposure.

Best estimates are placing the loss of birds at around 1000, but getting any kind of an accurate count is difficult unless the victims are carried to shore. The avian death toll is expected to go much much higher and a number of environmental and academic groups are calling for volunteers to help mitigate the crisis as best possible.

No one has quite dared to say it yet, but we all know what probably lies behind the unusually warm ocean conditions of late. If true, this catastrophe is just one of many to come.

As the Audubon's blog pointed out, since they are migratory, these birds are our birds. The Wildlife Center of the North Coast is asking for cash donations to purchase fish to feed the birds, along with good used towels, large dog kennels to carry birds and bleach, as well as experienced volunteers. If you would like to help out, please contact the center  at www.coastwildlife.org or via mail:

Wildlife Center of the North Coast 
P.O. Box 1232 
Astoria, OR 9710

Here's the source article, from The Oregonian fish wrap by way of OregonLive.com and the Audubon's blog:
--------

Foam from ocean algae bloom killing thousands of birds

By Lynne Terry, The Oregonian

View full size  P. CHILTON/Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team
A red-throated Loon, covered in foam, lies in the sand near the Klipsan beach approach on the northern end of the Long Beach Peninsula. The bird was still alive when this photo was taken.

A slimy foam churning up from the ocean has killed thousands seabirds and washed many others ashore, stripped of their waterproofing and struggling for life. The birds have been clobbered by an unusual algae bloom stretching from the northern Oregon coast to the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. "This is huge," said Julia Parrish, a marine biologist and professor at the University of Washington who leads a seabird monitoring group. "It's the largest mortality event of its kind on the West Coast that we know of."

The culprit is a single-cell algae or phytoplankton called Akashiwo sanguinea.  Though the algae has multiplied off the coast of California before, killing hundreds of seabirds, the phenomenon has not been seen in Oregon and Washington and has never occurred on the West Coast to this extent, Parrish said. "We're getting counts of up to a million cells per liter of water," she said. "Think about that. That's pretty dense." Marine biologists said it is not clear why the algae are multiplying, though they do flourish in warm weather. Recent storms could have contributed to the problem, with crashing waves breaking them up. The algae get whipped by the surf into something akin to a sticky soap which looks like the top of a root beer float. The foam can be deadly to seabirds because it washes off the natural oils that keep them waterproofed. Without that protection, they get cold, wet, eventually dying of hypothermia.  When they wash ashore, they are covered in foam.

"It looks like they're lying in a sea of bubble bath," said Greg Schirato,  regional wildlife program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He said thousands had died. This algal  bloom, unlike the toxins produced by blue-green algae, poses no threat to humans or pets. But the bloom could kill fish by clogging their gills, said Zachary Forster,  phytoplankton specialist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "We haven't seen any instances of that," Forster said. The first seabird die-off in the Northwest occurred in mid-September, with swarms of dead and dying birds washing up on beaches around Kalaloch  on the Olympic Peninsula. At least a thousand scoters or sea ducks, were killed, Parrish said. "Then it subsided and we thought it was over, but it started up again," she said. This time Oregon was hit as well.

On Tuesday, birds flooded ashore on the Long Beach peninsula and on beaches as far south as Cannon Beach, prompting an outpouring of calls to the Wildlife Center of the North Coast near Astoria. The center, the only wildlife rehabilitation facility serving the northern Oregon and Washington coasts, is working around the clock treating more than 500 birds. "We're in an emergency crisis mode," said Dr. Virginia Huang,  president of the center's board. Not only are volunteers retrieving struggling birds in northern Oregon and Long Beach, but officials from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are also trucking them in from the Olympic Peninsula. Barbara Linnett, a volunteer at the wildlife center, said the majority of seabirds that have poured in are Common Murres, Common Loons, Red-throated Loons and grebes. The center feeds them vitamins and fluids to hydrate them, then puts them in shallow pools of water. Swimming in clean water -- and preening -- helps the seabirds rebuild their waterproofing. Linnett hopes some of the birds can be released in a few days. In the meantime, marine biologists from Oregon, Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service are watching conditions closely, hoping that this was a freak event. The last time it occurred was in 2007 in Monterey Bay, when hundreds of seabirds were killed. "That event enabled us to figure out what is happening here," Parrish said.

To understand the new bizarroland LA politics in the era of this power vacuum, you need to know one thing today: The Los Angeles Times has lost ELEVEN PERCENT OF ITS READERS SINCE THE MAYORAL ELECTION.

Dramatico. Why?

Steve Lopez admits some of it at last: "All right, let me be honest: I'm feeling somewhat responsible for Trutanich. I didn't exactly choose sides when he ran against Jack Weiss earlier this year. But I made it clear that I liked Trutanich's tough talk about changing the City Hall culture and that I considered Weiss a tone-deaf Antonio Villaraigosa lackey who had alienated many of his own constituents as a city councilman."

This is a good first step, even if it's somewhat overblown, towards understanding why the Times is losing readers in bushels rather than trickles. (Does anyone really care who Steve Lopez endorses?)

We are now obliged to ask Steve a follow-up: if being an Antonio lackey was so bad--why didn't you go against the Mayor himself when you had the chance?

(Here's the kind of frivolty Steve was posting about the Mayor before the election).

Why didn't Robert Greene, Sue Horton, Jim Newton, and everyone else on the Times editorial board?

Remember, these were the very same people who said during the Mayor's race that to interview other candidates "veers towards pointlessness.

Even if it's far too little far too late, this mea culpa of someone at the former fishwrap of record is good news, because it's something I've been calling for, publicly and privately, from many decision-helpers ever since the election, and Steve is one of them. It's obvious now to many in the public: Carmen the Clown's supporters in March, from the Times editorial board to Jane Usher, expressed their contempt for the Mayor not bravely but gutlessly, by going against his arrogant friend Jack Weiss rather than the man who was in fact most responsible for despoiling the city, Villaraigosa, who with his cautious foil Eric Garcetti have spent their tenures making Los Angeles into a place for property-poor wage slaves.

But when will the Times editorial board finally do their mea culpa for bringing us Carmen the Clown? When will the Daily News? When will Jane Usher?

(Now, those of us in the know know that the Times didn't really lose eleven percent of its readers over that time. The truth is that the Times had been padding its circ numbers for a few years, finally got caught, and had to report honest figures this time, making for an Xtreme-games cliff drop rather than a beginner's slope falloff.)

Even so, dear Times and Daily News, once again: the sooner you own your Carmen the Clown endorsement was a childish mistake, and start calling for his resignation, the better.

Otherwise, continue your reader hemorrhages and layoffs. No Democrats--over 70% of the city--take you seriously anymore, and you can't make up declining subscriptions in the suburbs, where they just don't care about your newspaper, having been burned for coverage too many times. You won't gap the losses until you better reflect the feelings of the people who live right here, in the city of Los Angeles.

Socialist! Nannyist!--The Mayor Sam / Mayor Jennerjahn tribe hit Griffith Park. (And wow, does the LATimes ever know how to overexpose a photo to white-out a blue sky.)

It's a stunning turn-around, but in the past ten days the nation has gone from leaning towards not getting a public option to leaning towards getting one.

After some lackluster investigative work, a couple of free-on-the-weekend phone calls, and facing down the shameful threat of being labeled a muckraker, or, even worse, a journalist, we now have confirmation that although Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa publicly declined a swine flu shot on Saturday, convinced that at-risk populations should be first to receive them, some able-bodied members of his staff received them in City Hall later in the day with Villaraigosa's approval.

Tony Castro speculates that the next LAPD chief could be either a Latino, an Asian, or a woman, any of which would be precedent-setting.

NeoNazi skinheads clash with counter-protestors in Riverside--who knew? Right. You could probably run that headline safely once a week. But Riverside wasn't the only place for high concentrations of pasty white folk expressing their bottomless anger at cancer survivors, homos, and people of color. Just scroll down a little to catch our photos of the teabaggers at Crystal Springs in Griffith Park yesterday. And the former fishwrap of record also has a wrap-up of the hillbilly bandwagon.

Harvey Levin isn't the only "journalist" suffering invasions of privacy at the hands of a vindictive, renegade DA. In Chicago, Northwestern University is being subpoenaed by local law enforcement for grade records and other personal info on journalism students working a cold case. RT @ WitnessLA.

Not LA either, not even California, but fascinating: the man who benefited the most from Bernie Madoff's investor ripoffs has been found dead in his Palm Beach, Flordia swimming pool. Jeffry Picower made thirty times more money off of Madoff's ruses than Madoff himself did.

Zounds, Land O'Goshen, good fortune, Louisa! I didn't have to go to West Virginny or even Orange County to see honest to god cornfed hillbilly teabaggers---they were right here in Griffith Park today!

He may have gone to Harvard Law, but these bleached blonde Aryans think he's a...



The double-wides in the orange tees told me they sent Joe Wilson $20 right away...



Not even teabaggers wanted to get too close to this thinly-veiled death wish...



Thank god these people aren't looney and are ready to run the country--because We The People who brought you Thomas Jefferson, FDR, Social Security, Medicare, and the Womens', Civil, and Gay and Lesbian Rights movements are obvious loons!



Would have loved to have taken more but it was too gut-wrenching to be on this side of the police tape when all the cancer survivors and gay rights activists were over there on the other side, singing songs of hope and peace. But that's what we liberals have needed to be in such a country: fearless.



FTW, you can learn more about the California Courage Campaign, a worthy counter-movement to the teabaggers, at couragecampaign.org.

City Council's drubbing of Carmen the Clown continues to inspire laughs and fury. Ron Kaye's post from Friday is up to 45 comments and they are still coming in this morning. Someone needs to tweet SLAP updates for those of us who find Saturday afternoons difficult to make.

A portion of those attending the opening of the new police headquarters noted the memorial to the fallen officers.

Dueling protests: local folks from 350.org, who believe the earth's atmosphere is changing, protested global warming yesterday at 3 p.m. at the Manhattan Beach Pier and also around the world--in 181 countries. And teabaggers, who believe the earth is flat, will protest science, education, and people of color today at 4:30 p.m. in Griffith Park.

The question of whether or not petition signatures are private or public is being engaged by the state of Washington. California has already determined they are private.

Sci-Arc could leave downtown, the Downtown News says. That would be a tremendous blow to arts corridor commerce and culture.

MT, Red Car River Park, Los Angeles River at Hyperion, 10.23.09

Political twilight zone indeed: Wendy Greuel told a downtown group this past week that transpo is the greatest issue facing the city. She has also called herself our DWP ratepayer advocate.

Very strong parallels at national and local level, where Democrats benefit from deep divisions among the GOP. Palin and Bachman's endorsement of a Conservative Party candidate over a Republican indicates that now intolerant Republicans are eating their own. Republican Zine reluctantly countering Republican Trutanich at yesterday's Council meeting indicates Zine is far more politically savvy and knows which way the wind is blowing, even though he was Carmen the Clown's sturdiest supporter before the election. Blue Dog Dem Janice Hahn, another Trutanich supporter, who calls Carmen the Clown "a Pedro guy," says she doesn't want the Carmen the Clown's policy to end up "issue a permit, go to jail."

Sabina commenting at the Times has a superb wrap-up of Carmen the Clown's fiascoate:

Trutanich has his usual AARP army already blogging away - as usual, without any substance just the "Go Tru! Get the Crooks" boilerplate nonsense....If it were ONLY AEG and ONLY Perry and ONLY the Head of Building & Safety and ONLY the Volunteer Planning Commissioners and ONLY other Board members and ONLY the Controller he threatened to sue or even jail for not kowtowing to him, it might be one thing. BUT he's bullied constituents like a cancer survivor at a Neighborhood Council meeting, lied to and taken their endorsements and/or money of Controller Chick and the pro-medical cannabis community to get elected then immediately not only thrown them under the bus but set out to malign/ destroy (Controller and her lawyer) or to work aggressively against them (pro-cannabis community, gang intervention people), or just discard them (NRA supporters over the bullet restrictions).

Nicely done by an attentive citywatcher.

Former Mayoral Candidate's Craig X. Rubin's arrest continues to look politically motivated; another former Mayoral candidate, Phil Jennerjahn, thinks so.

MT, Thanks for the injuries, Marshall High, 10.23.09


Yesterday, John Marshall High School hosted Lincoln High School for John Marshall's homecoming game. Dignitaries such as Tom LaBonge and Zev Yaroslavsky were on hand for the ceremonies dedicating the school's new field.

The LAUSD is using Prop K money to rip out old grassy football fields and install low-maintenance astroturf. The problem with the astroturf is that it's much harder than grass and causes more injuries--especially the variety the LAUSD likes to install, with a concrete-composite foundation.

Conversely, three years ago, California's oval horse racing tracks went to all synthetic surfaces, because they thought those surfaces were softer than dirt and caused fewer injuries. Though racing is an ailing sport, the commission found enough compassion in their hearts to lead the nation and do what it could to prevent the kind of injuries that notably destroyed Barbaro and more recently Eight Belles in high-profile Triple Crown races out-of-state tracks.

However a recent report documented that horses are more likely to experience hind-leg injuries on synthetic tracks. And it is widely speculated that up to ninety percent of all cataclysmic horse injuries occur to horses that have previously been injured.

Are we treating our horses better than our kids? Are we treating neither very well?

The Barristers of Marshall beat Lincoln 28-0.

Elsewhere, our end-of-lifecycle quotidian fishwrap has no dance critic, but it does maintain, almost as an indulgent affectation, an architecture critic. Christopher Hawthorne is engagingly pedestrian in his approach to architecture, and he says that the new police headquarters is generally a good neighbor. Yours truly agrees; the building is not nearly as brutal as we thought it would be. But he also calls its long setback from the street "suburban in its attitude to the city," which is not at all correct. In fact, the building engages street level in a meaningful way only by receding from the street itself. It is a bunker but a well-camouflaged one, and that is a trait of urbanism, not the suburban.


And further elsewhere, there is an article in the Downtown News by Anna Scott worth noting. The title says it all: "Going for Broke: Making Sense of Downtown's Eight Bankrupt Residential Projects." One--The Flat--is 90% occupied, and ironically, this building with the highest occupancy of all those in Chapter 11 is the only one that has been foreclosed on by the lender. The Brockman Building, which houses Bottega Louie, is in Chapter 7, so its assets will be liquidated. The article provides little analysis except from perennial booster Jack Kyser and does not politicize the failures at all; but critics of developer doormat Gail Goldberg and city council's density hawks were forecasting trouble long ago.


Wonder how we got here? Maybe the biggest reason yet why you can't trust the GOP with your money: they spent over a million dollars on this this worthless website.

Greetings on a beautiful Friday afternoon!

For more information on any of the items here, please visit the Council District 4 website: www.tomlabonge.com

- Councilmember LaBonge is proud to dedicate the beautiful new track and field at his alma mater, John Marshall High School today. The dedication ceremony begins at 5 p.m., just before the Barristers face the Lincoln High School Tigers in the Homecoming football game at 6 p.m. The Marshall track was short when the school opened in 1931; grading and irrigation problems on the football field's end zones caused frequent problems for players. Councilmember LaBonge has been wanting to see this facility standardized for 40 years. Please join him for a pre-event tour at 4 p.m. See the attached flier.

- Tom voted to support the Wilshire subway project after being sworn in as a temporary METRO board member yesterday. He filled in for Councilmember Jose Huizar who was unable to attend. The board re-affirmed its plan to apply for federal funding for the Subway to the Sea, which will provide a much-needed link between the Westside and the rest of the Metro system, via a Wilshire Boulevard subway line. If Metro, a County agency, receives federal funding for this project, the subway could be completed in as little as ten years.

- The Los Angeles Police Department's new headquarters will be open to the public for tours tomorrow. The new building is directly across the street from City Hall at the 100 West First Street, Downtown. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton will lead opening day ceremonies at 10 a.m. For more information, visit the LAPD website: http://www.lapdonline.org/newsroom/news_view/43148

- The public is welcome to see and touch the largest section of the Berlin Wall outside of its home city. It is on display now at 5900 West Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile.

- Councilmember LaBonge is happy to co-sponsor nature education programs at four Silver Lake elementary schools through the Wildwoods Foundation. Thank you to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council for matching CD4's $1,000 donation for the Full Circle program, which teaches fifth graders about the parallels between nature and human behavior. For more information on the Full Circle program, visit the Wildwoods Foundation website: http://www.wildwoodsfoundation.org/FullCircle.htm

- Thank you to everyone who volunteered to help John Marshall High School seniors with their college applications. Organizers at the school were overwhelmed by the positive response from LaBonge News readers. Thank you for making a difference in the lives of the students and the entire community.

Have a great weekend and continue to enjoy and love Los Angeles.

MT, Some Pumpkins, Franklin Avenue, 10.23.09


Talk after the panel last night at the LA Press Club was of the Mel Gibson/Harvey Levin imbroglio. Most scribes shake their head and feel that the State's shield law is inadequate, and those who want to protect sources should always be prepared to do time, as Bill Farr did and as Judith Miller did.

Another feeling: this isn't really a First Amendment or a shield law case at all. If not, James Rainey's column misses the mark entirely. It may be more of a far less glamorous California Constitution Article 1 Section 2b case. Ironically, it's the County Sheriffs Department that has been the party treating it as a First Amendment case--because they know they can win on those grounds, which are very friendly to law enforcement. Rainey doesn't appear to know it, but in touting Levin as a "First Amendment hero," he jumped on the Sheriff's bandwagon, not Levin's.

For the record, California Constitution 1, 2b says:

A publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service, or any person who has been so connected or employed, shall not be adjudged in contempt by a judicial, legislative, or administrative body, or any other body having the power to issue subpoenas, for refusing to disclose the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for publication in a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or for refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public.

Nor shall a radio or television news reporter or other person connected with or employed by a radio or television station, or any person who has been so connected or employed, be so adjudged in contempt for refusing to disclose the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for news or news commentary purposes on radio or television, or for refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public.

That's likely the clearest legal route for the Levin team.

Metro has launched The Source, a blog that will post transit agency news. Former Times scribe Steve Hymon edits and contributes.

DASH has also recently launched a beta site regarding DASH times, which seems fairly useless. If you need a website with pulldown menus to figure out when the next DASH will be around (BlackBerry thumb jockey nightmare), that's not exactly a dashing service.

The Pasadena Star News has been on top of some important environmental news of late. Today they report on the US Fish and Wildlife Service's efforts to support a very endangered frog whose critical habitat was severely impacted by the Station Fire. The fire also damaged the habitat of the Santa Ana Sucker, a fish found in the Big Tujunga portion of Hansen Dam Recreational Area.  Hansen Dam is a City of Los Angeles Regional Park and at 1400 acres it the third largest City park behind Griffith Park and Sepulveda Basin. Debris flows from this winter's predicted El Nino rains threaten to completely destroy the habitat of both the Santa Ana Sucker and the Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog.

Issues of wildlife, critical habitat, and management in these large City parks are an important area where the Department of Recreation and Parks needs to improve their responsiveness. Given the City's current financial crisis, it is going to be up to the public and outside organizations with the proper expertise (and no hidden agendas) to help the DRP enact and support these activities if any improvement is to be made in the next few years.

Unless the general public steps up to the plate, nothing will change.

The Pasadena Star News story references the BAER Reports we previously mentioned were underway to study the Station Fire's environmental impact on the San Gabriels and surrounding communities. A number of those reports have been drafted and are available at the US Forest Service's BAER web page.

Here is the story:

Rare tadpoles rescued from Station Fire burn zone
By Emma Gallegos, Staff Writer


An adult mountain yellow-legged frog along Little Rock Creek in the Angeles National Forest. Monday, August 11, 2003. (SGVN/Staff photo by Bernardo Alps)

In a slippery, slimy rescue mission, federal workers this month scooped up and relocated 106 rare tadpoles to save them from possible fallout from the Station Fire. When the Station Fire rolled through the mountains this August, it burned Devil's Canyon, a prime habitat for the yellow-legged frog, which is on the federal endangered species list. So workers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service caught them and sent them to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, which recently formed a partnership with wildlife service. The Station Fire's effects could be particularly devastating for the small population of rare frogs that makes its home in the creeks and rivers of the San Gabriel Valley Mountains, said federal officials. The fire singed vegetation along banks where the frogs live and reduced the population of streamside insects the frogs feast on, like beetles, ants and flies, but scientists are especially worried about what could happen to the tadpoles when a winter storm blows through the Angeles National Forest. "Right now we're concerned that if there are heavy rains or even average rains, there could be a significant incidence of debris flows," said Stephanie Weagley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mudslides caused by rain storms could wipe out the streams where the frogs live and choke them with ash, she said.

Thirty full-grown frogs will remaining in Devil's Canyon - a tributary of the west fork of the San Gabriel River. The tadpoles will stay at the zoo in Fresno at least until next spring, when scientists will reassess how the mountain yellow-legged frog's home has recovered, Weagley said. The mountain yellow-legged frog wasn't the only animal - nor the only endangered animal - threatened by the Station Fire. A team of federal scientists visited the Angeles National Forest in September to create a Burned Area Report (BAER) and assess how the Station Fire affected the wildlife, the geology, the water quality and even the historic sites. The report focused on four federally-protected species that make their home there including the frog: a fish called the unarmored threespine stickleback, the Arroyo toad and the Santa Ana suckerfish. This isn't the first time that a federal agency has stepped in to protect the federally-endangered frog. For the last four years, the U.S. Forest Service has closed off 1,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains from hikers, while scientists tried to figure out how humans were affecting the frogs.

emma.gallegos@sgvn.com
(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444

A vindictive clown, trying to punch way out of midlife crisis

The Daily News, which endorsed Carmen the Vindictive Clown, now finds in an editorial that the charge of bully for Trutanich is a fitting one. The problem is, they think it's cool that he is. Apparently they too have no idea about what role a City Attorney should play in a city. When they admit that the didn't do the due diligence on him, that will be a big step forward for their increasingly irrepsonsible editorial board, which still faces a very steep learning curve.

We were just reporting yesterday how low Jane Usher continues to go on behalf of Carmen the Vindictive Clown, and early word on former mayoral candidate Craig Rubin's arrest yesterday is that Usher fingered him. Usher had just sent out an email blast supporting Carmen the Vindictive Clown's attempt to shut down nearly all medical marijuana dispensaries.

While the MTA Long Term Plan passed yesterday, it still faces critical heat from powerful voices for not being inclusive enough of every last transpo project. Congresspeople especially wish there were more projects involved, not only LA's.

Hey Scott McKibben! Congratulations! Scott is the new exec director of the Tournament of Roses. Make sure to breathalyze the float drivers---we've seen some odd veerings from the yellow line in recent years.

They had a bloggers' bash at the LA Press Club last night. An audience member and former Times staffer blurted out bloated Tim Rutten's bloated Times salary: over $200,000 a year. For writing junk nobody reads. You can bet with Jill Stewart at the controls and people like Mickey Kaus and Marc Danziger on the panel that the former fishwrap of record took a few lumps. We also spotted and chatted with eastside LA's Jesus Sanchez and mediabistro glamour gal Pandora Young. Microblogging was discussed by all panelists, but none of them were exactly microbloggers. Jill did mention "people who blog about Griffith Park."

Pandora, by the way, had some things to say about Sandra Tsing Loh and other bitter midlifers recently that made us chuckle.

Chris Essel won the endorsement of four former opponents in the CD2, but the Paul Krekorian campaign leaked details of an iffy fundraising moment for her to Michael Higby, who endorsed Krekorian two months ago and now openly carries water for Paul. Interest in the race between the two was already very low in the district; it's now so low, in fact, that the race threatens to morph into a referendum on Higby, a blogger better known for splashing around in the gutter than for trying to clean it up.

The hillbilly branch of the Republican party has found their Waterloo: it's Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 race, who runs as a "Conservative Party" member and is trying to unseat a moderate Republican. Republicans Michelle Bachman and out-of-work talk show guest Sarah Palin have endorsed Hoffman.

By all accounts, Tom LaBonge did not distinguish himself at the MTA board meeting yesterday.

Want to catch something this weekend other than that bronchitis that's going around? Curious George is now at Metblogs with some edgy ideas.

Even better--don't forget about the Christmas Bird Count!

MT, About the Landlord, Talmadge, Los Feliz, 10.22.09

Stephen Box is doing a bang-up job reporting on Facebook from the MTA meeting. Excerpt: "Molina took Leahy on a car tour of the Eastside. They should have taken bikes, they'd have learned more about the community!" Molina on a bike would also have other benefits.

UPDATE: The Mayor tweets: "Long Range Transportation Plan passes unanimously! Thanks everyone who showed up and sent in emails. Big step forward for LA!"

Carmen il pagliaccio Trutanich cites the fact that he wants "to make the citizens whole" as the reason he wants to bill AEG for the Michael Jackson memorial.

F. Aaron Smith of the Marijuana Policy Project blasts Carmen the clown's proposed medical 420 ordinance, knocking around in Council as your faux leaders wonder what to do with it. He notes: "Bizarrely, the ordinance also doesn’t allow any medical marijuana facility to operate within 1,000 feet of a “hospital or medical facility.” Hmm… I thought that patient collectives were medical facilities."

This is how they roll...LAPD busts beaucoup Rollin' 40's in South LA.

No organization in the city likes to waste time, money and talent more than the LA Conservancy, and today they press bigtime for historic monument status for a crummy hotel that's not even 50 years old. You have to love this sentence as an expression of how much nothing this ado is about: "Councilman Paul Koretz proposed giving the hotel cultural status, a move that would not in itself prevent the developer from demolishing it."

The Daily News followed up our earlier item on the Atwater fire yesterday and learned that a firefighter received first and second degree burns fighting the blaze on Perlita. The firefighter was released from the hospital but will be out of work for a spell.

A fire in Atwater that fetched the attention of two news helicopters and caused a big tie-up on Glendale apparently went completely unreported yesterday. Other fires, however, like that one in Venice, made the cut.

The Weekly adroitly observes that opposition to the city's petulant treatment of medical marijuana distribution is as unifying for the city as another Laker banner. Also noted: we see some names we recognize in there.

(If you want our opinion, by the way, and god help you if you do, but it is apparent to us that Wendy Greuel is missing a big political opportunity here. She should produce a report tout de suite demonstrating the economic impact of competent management--not Carmen Trutanich abolition--of medical marijuana dispensaries.)

AEG is hitting our City Attorney back. Even so, we got an email from Jane Usher yesterday, shilling again for Carmen. I even knew her twenty years ago, and I had no idea Usher was so Republican, but she's not giving her sweetheart up.

To avoid another Angeles Crest debacle, County Fire and State Park will hold community meetings dedicated to coming up with a good wildfire plan for the Santa Monica Mountains. Info here.

There's always too much trash in Griffith Park, but there will be a surfeit of the white variety on Sunday when the teabaggers stage a protest there.

LA cops seem happy with a two-year plan that neither grants raises nor permits furloughs.

The MTA Board will decide today if they want to prioritize Wilshire corridor or other light rail projects. Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic does a better job of breaking down the possibilities than the fishwraps do.

A former fishwrap of record waits with bated breath for new circ numbers to hit the streets and kill moribund advertising even further. The other thing we've (LA)Observed is how Kevin Roderick's source for management memos from the Times appears to have dried up since late September. The only memos he's published this month are ones that even reach the paper boys, and Nikki Finke has even scooped him once this month on a Times personnel change.

Judge Manuel Real is one of the most terrifying judges in America, and now probably senile to boot, and Celeste Fremon observes yet another courtroom under Real's jurisprudence running to farce during the bail hearing of Alex Sanchez. Denied, ftw.

The waters off Palos Verdes may be overfished. The State's Fish and Game wardens will soon decide if so. Fishermen are protesting a report.

Imperial Capital is the residue investment arm of an old and old-time and frankly rather bizarre bank around here, Imperial Bank. The newer capital group nearly went bankrupt in 2003 (!) but now it wants to go public. It has a young top executive and no specific plans for the cash it might raise. The Feds had better eyeball this one closely.

Bloated creaky shopworn Tim Rutten demonstrates yet again why nobody reads the LA Times op-ed page, this time with idle but hard-to-follow thoughts on a football stadium. He seems to think we should build a stadium in Industry because it will be a construction stimulus. Rutten is the worst kind of op-ed writer, the kind that follows the front pages rather than leads them.

Ron Kaye will host another SLAP meeting commencing on noon Saturday at the Hollywood Community Center, 6501 Fountain Avenue.

At the same time as the Sidecar Rally is taking place, the Tea Party Express takes over Pad D at Crystal Springs within throwing distance of the rally.

So it's free-spirit bikers verses conservative politics in a winner-take-all match at Park Center on the 25th. Could be fun!

Think I'll bring a camera, some medical-use ganja and a Kevlar vest to the festivities.

Speaking of wheels and spin, where exactly was this "Well-publicized public input at every step" actually publicized?

From the Pasadena Star News:
------

Off-road vehicle advocates work to smooth path to future parks

By Daniel Tedford daniel.tedford@sgvn.com
10/20/2009 01:47:32 PM PDT

After 25 years of spinning its wheels, the county is trying to back off the accelerator and get a little traction on an effort to build small off-road parks all over the county. Since the 1980s, the county has been trying build more parks, including smaller parks in urban areas. But efforts have been mired in fights over land use with environmentalists, bicyclists, horse riders and other opponents. The subject is so touchy, the county's lead agent on the project is leery to talk about it. "The last think I want to do is stick my foot in my mouth and set this thing back another 25 years," said Robert Ettleman, an off-highway vehicle and trails park planner with the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.



At the San Gabriel Canyon Off Highway Vehicle area on Highway 39, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009. (Staff Photo by Eric Reed/SVCITY)

Ettleman for the last month has been holding meetings where he pitched guidelines for opening new parks, including meetings this month in Azusa and Rowland Heights. Ideally, the plan would create small off-road parks all over the county. "The reality is we would want one (urban park) in every community because just one of these would be overwhelmed," said Paul Slavik, who sits on the advisory committee for the county's parks and recreation as well as being a commissioner for the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division for the state' department of parks and recreation. Bringing parks into the city is one thing everyone can agree on.

While off roaders see a little mud play in the wilderness as a good time, members of the Sierra Club see it motor-powered habitat destruction. Putting parks in new wilderness areas is out of the question for many environmental advocates. "It is locating it in sensitive habitat itself that is the primary concern," said George Barnes, the California Sierra Club co-chair of the off-road vehicle task force. He agrees that the county needs some sort of guidelines for acceptable off-road parks. If not, people will off road illegally. "If you don't have parks, then the vehicles should be banned outright," he said.

Right now, riders have to venture outside of Los Angeles County for most recreation activity, usually hours away to San Bernardino County deserts and other areas. That is despite the fact 14-to-15 percent of people in Los Angeles County are licensed riders of off-highway vehicles and the population is increasing, according to Department of Motor Vehicle statistics. Issues with management and proper designs have turned off environmentalists to OHV parks in the past, Barnes said. But the county's latest efforts signal a turn in the right direction, Barnes said. "In general, I think Los Angeles County's approach is a good one," Barnes said. "Well-publicized public input at every step." Advocates know that without a shift in public perception toward such parks, it will be difficult to get a project started. "You are never going to get a park, especially in a urban area, without involving the community," Slavik said.

Plans are well underway for this winter's county-wide Bird Count, and Griffith Park's participation needs your help. The 2010 count is scheduled throughout the county on January 3rd.

The Christmas Bird Count has taken place since the 1930s and is a source for some of the best historical bird count data in our area. We can't think of a better way to start the new year!

Dan Cooper, of Cooper Ecological Monitoring Inc is organizing this winter's count and is looking for coordinators.  Cooper was instrumental in the completion of a Griffith Park Wildlife study after the 2007 Griffith Park Fire, and is currently involved in the Griffith Park Natural History Survey.

Please go to Dan's web site for more information on how to volunteer as well as bird lists, and maps of the count area.


Image of a Rufus-sided Towhee from the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory.

The Times' LA blog reports that City Council has pulled back its scheme to raise fees on development appeals. The Planning Department and its best friends in Council, notably Bernie Parks and Ed Reyes, had hoped to raise fees on appeals. Reyes says he'll tinker with the proposal and bring it back to Council in a month.

And now for a little bit of fun in the park, it's the Griffith Park Sidecar Rally. This event was shut down early last year due to some bad behavior by a few participants. Hopefully the organizers have the kinks worked out this year....

Griffith Park

SIDE CAR RALLY

October 25, 2009

Sunday 9 A.M. - 3 P.M. Come Early!

Lot 2, Merry-Go-Round  (see map)

Griffith Park, Los Angeles

SPECTATORS FREE !!!

Learn all about sidecars and see some of

all the best and most unusual sidecars

in the world at this years

Griffith Park Sidecar Rally.

For Information call (818) 780-5542 ask for Doug Bingham

Grind this ledge: Griffith Park Boulevard near Sunset.

David Zahniser gives voice to those who oppose the Planning Department's latest land use scam: to increase processing fees for those who oppose planning department decisions. Bernie Parks and Ed Reyes are among those who love the idea of raising rates and marginalizing the voices of homeowners even further.

Still more layoffs coming to the LATimes. Even so, Russ Stanton was crowing about the future last night at USC, banking on--e-readers? How many visions of the future has Stanton offered while shrinking to greatness? A business writer is not a businessman.

City officials have cleared the way for LAX's international terminal to go into rehab. $1.3 billion, the largest city contract ever, will be funded by muni bonds.

The beach is always last to lose value and first to gain it back: home sales averaged 17% higher in Venice in September 2009 over September 2008.

The Stassen-like David Hernandez notes that the only State Assembly district in LA that has a Republican rep is the 38th, and the registration differential there is down to 3.5%.

Old Stone's in Echo Park, which morphed into La Popular in the 1990's, needs to morph again, as the Latino customers they chased have been chased away themselves, LA Eastside reports.

From the LA Times:

Suspect wanted for questioning in Station fire charged with setting smaller blaze

October 19, 2009 | 2:27 pm

A suspect wanted for questioning in the Station fire has been arrested and charged with setting a small fire near Angeles Crest Highway, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said today. Babatunsin Olukunle, a 25-year-old Nigerian national, was arrested Thursday in Lancaster, said Sheriff's Lt. Liam Gallagher. "We are going to talk to him about the Station fire, but we're not going to list him as a suspect [in that fire] just yet," Gallagher said.

Olukunle was caught tending a small fire near Marker 36 of the Angeles Crest Highway in the early afternoon of Aug. 20, six days before the start of the Station fire, the largest brush fire in L.A. County history. The fire burned for almost two months and scorched more than 250 square miles. The Station fire probe became a homicide investigation after two firefighters died when their truck fell 800 feet into a ravine as they tried to find an escape route from the flames for fellow firefighters. L.A. County and the state have offered a $150,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the arsonist. The Station fire destroyed dozens of structures. Investigators believe a substance found near the fire’s point of origin helped spread the deadly blaze and it has emerged as a key piece of evidence in the arson probe, a source told The Times. The source would not identify the substance but said it was found in the brush off Angeles Crest Highway, walking distance from the turnoff that is at the center of the arson probe.

-- Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Burned fire hose frames a turnout on the Angeles Crest Highway where fire investigators believe an arson ignited the massive Station fire. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Parks, Green Spaces Protect Your Health

Study Shows People Living Near Parks Less Likely to Have Depression

By Salynn Boyles, WebMD Health News

Oct. 14, 2009 -- There is more evidence that living near parks, woods, or other green spaces may improve your mental and physical health. Close proximity to green spaces was associated with less depression, anxiety, and other health problems in a newly published study. The relationship was strongest for children and people with low incomes. The research is not the first to suggest that green spaces help keep people healthy, but it is the first to assess their impact on specific health conditions. Investigators in the Netherlands examined patient health records from medical practices throughout the country. Using postal codes, they were also able to determine the percentage of green space existing within about 2 miles of each patient's home. "The strongest associations we saw between green space and health occurred within a 1 kilometer [0.6 mile] radius of the home," study researcher Jolanda Maas, PhD, of Amsterdam's VU University tells WebMD.

Biggest Impact on Anxiety, Depression

The study included data on the prevalence of 24 different health conditions treated over the course of a year among about 350,000 patients seen at 96 practices. For 15 of the 24 conditions, the annual prevalence was lower among patients living in the greenest areas, even after the researchers controlled for factors known to influence health. Among the other major findings:

• The impact was greatest for mental health conditions. Compared to people living in areas with the least green spaces, those living in areas with the most were a third less likely to have anxiety disorders that required treatment and roughly one-fifth less likely to receive treatment for depression.
• Among the physical health conditions, the apparent protective benefits of living in greener areas appeared strongest for respiratory diseases such as asthma, COPD, and upper respiratory infections.
• A much weaker association was seen for other common health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Surprisingly, greater access to green spaces appeared to have no impact on health of people living in the most urban neighborhoods included in the study. The researchers speculate that this might be because green spaces in poor, highly urban areas may not be used as much because they are perceived as unsafe.

Green Spaces Reduce Stress, Encourage Exercise

Earlier studies suggest green spaces in primarily urban areas improve health by lowering stress and encouraging exercise. "There is a huge body of research showing that having access to green spaces is psychologically beneficial," says urban naturalist Mike Houck, who is executive director of the Urban Greenspace Institute in Portland, Ore. When Houck began his career in 1980, urban planners often told him there was no place for nature within the city limits. "They told me my job was to protect the natural areas outside the city and that everything within was essentially up for grabs," he tells WebMD. "It has taken 30 years, but attitudes have definitely changed." So much so that two major health insurance providers in Portland, Ore. were active in persuading voters to pass a $227 million bond in 2006 dedicated to acquiring new green spaces. "That was the first time they had ever endorsed a bond measure, but they understood its importance," he says. "It is inconceivable to me that a person out for a walk or a bicycle ride or a kayak trip does not benefit both physically and mentally."

GGPNC Board Meeting - 7pm October 20, 2009
Start: 10/20/2009 7:00 pm 

Board Meetings are held the 3rd Tuesday of each month at:
 
The Los Feliz Community Police Center (2nd floor of Citibank)
1965 N. Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027


The Agenda for the Monthly Board meeting is posted about three day prior to the meeting and copied below.
 
1. Call to Order; Quorum Check
2. Public Comments on Non-Agenda Items; Public Announcements (2 mins. each)
3. Reports: Public Officials and City Staff
4. Treasurer’s Report (5 mins.)
A. Board Resolution authorizing new Treasurer for Funding requests.
Resolution: The Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council Board has elected David Uebersax as Treasurer on September 15, 2009, and with the appropriate training and funding forms completed, transfers authority to submit Demand Warrants and fulfill approved funding transactions as appropriate with the petty cash account, as well as the credit card issued to be administered on in accordance with the GGPNC bylawas and within the guidelines set forth by the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.
B. Treasurer’s Report. Brief status report on current items, and discussion of follow up for 2009-2010 budget as approved, to include updated rollover fund total and other proposed budget items to be represented with further detail for approval.
5. Executive Committee Report (15 mins.)
A. Consideration of items for proposed action on grievance filed by Dana Cremin; discussion and action as appropriate.
B. Discussion of appropriate fees for copying ggpnc documents/materials as requested by interested stakeholders.
6. Approval of Minutes from May, June, July, August and September, 2009 Board Meetings


Committee Reports
7. Education Committee
A. Request for $5,000 for Big Blue M Project at Marshall High School as part of matching grant of $10,000 from LA Beautification Grant. Discussion and action.
B. Request for letter to be written to Mr. Cortines, LAUSD to keep fourth vice-principal at King Middle School. Mr Mark Jolley has been of great assistance to us and the school needs the consistency of a vp that has been there for 6 years, needs the continituity in the process of going from year-round to traditional school year and the perpetuation of good community relationships. Discussion and action. 

8. Parks River and Open Space Committee


A. Update on coyote killings controversy in Griffith Park. Discussion of circumstances leading to the euthanizations, and proposed remedies including possible action on a Community Impact Statement of support for LaBonge City Council Motion 09-2327 drafted in response to the euthanizations. 

B. Update on community and CD4 response to possible changes in duties and reassignments within the Recreation and Parks Department's Park Ranger Division. 

C. Update on final plan for the LADWP 2009 Light Festival in Griffith Park, including public comment and GGPNC opinion poll results. 

9. Outreach Committee
A. Request from LA City re: 2010 Census
B. Report on upcoming election timelines. Discussion and possible action.
10. Planning, Zoning and Historic Preservation Committee
A. 2223 Nottingham Ave. Request to retain recently constructed over-height walls and hedges in required front yard setback. Committee recommends opposition. 
B. Ruen Pair Thai Restaurant, 5257 Hollywood Blvd. Request to sell beer and wine at existing restaurant until 2 a.m. Committee recommends non-opposition provided service not extend beyond 11 p.m., permission cease upon change of ownership and other conditions accepted by applicant.  
C. 2208 Catalina (4821 Los Feliz Boulevard) request to build 345 foot, 7 ft. high wall set back 5 ft. from property lines on Catalina and Los Feliz with higher pedestrian and automobile gates. Committee recommends opposition. Applicant has indicated he may reconsider proposal and ask for subsequent review by committee.)
11. Cultural Committee
A. Request for support from Hollywood Remembers, Inc., for production expenses of its annual World AIDS Day observance on Sunday November 29: "Red Ribbon" by Joe Lawrence, directed by Jerry Craig. (see supporting information, page 3)
12. Other Comments and Announcements
13. Adjourn

There's no news like old news. Too bad nothing has changed and the councilman still insults the good people of Atwater Village with his childish insistence on using his own pet name for their community.

From FriendsofAtwaterVillage:

Councilmember Tom LaBonge (CD4) Renames Section of North Atwater Village Without Community Input or Support

Councilmember Tom Labonge (CD4) has continually and deliberately ignored established City policy and has arbitrarily renamed a section of North Atwater Village as “River Glen” despite community input.

The area referred to as “River Glen" by Labonge covers Atwater Village’s northern industrial park. Unlike the rest of Atwater Village which is in CD 13, the area referred to is within CD4, Tom Labonge’s district. It lies south of San Fernando Road between Doran Street and Goodwin Avenue and borders the City of Glendale and the Los Angeles River. It is primarily industrial, with very few residences.

In early 2003 Councilmember Labonge first proposed changing the name of this section of Atwater Village to “River Glen”. The Councilmember argued that it would be appropriate to rename that area in order to give it its own identity to help in the future beautification and revitalization efforts. Interestingly enough, in the 6 years since Labonge’s proposed the name change the area has received neither any beautification or revitalization efforts. However, within the past few months, Labonge has offered to the Department of Sanitation the former site of Levitz Furniture (5375 W San Fernando Rd) to be used as a “waste (garbage) to energy” plant which doesn’t seem to fall into either the beautification or revitalization categories.

Labonge’s original proposal to rename the area received stiff opposition from residents and civic leaders who, at that time, were in the process of forming the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council and strengthening the integrity of the community’s boundaries and identity. By March 14, 2003 Labonge’s motion to rename this area to “River Glen” was withdrawn from the L.A. City Council (Council File: 02-2792) and no vote was ever taken. Consequently, this area is still named and known as “North Atwater Village” to the residents of Atwater Village.

Nevertheless, unknown to most of the Atwater Village community, Councilmember Labonge and his staff continue to this day to refer to Atwater Village’s industrial park in North Atwater as “River Glen” The references to “River Glen” can be found on the Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan and other City documents. Somehow, Labonge has managed to insert the name “River Glen” to CD4’s interactive map (http://www.tomlabonge.com/map/) which consequently partitions Atwater Village’s industrial park and equestrian area in North Atwater Village from the reset of Atwater Village.

In light of Labonge's continued use of "River Glen" some in Atwater Village wonder what needs to be done to stop him from arbitrarily changing the name of a vital part of North Atwater and removing it from our village.

Dear Friend of Griffith Park,

Thank you for registering your opinion about changes you would like to see in the annual LADWP Light Festival in Griffith Park. The combined input of the 125 responses we received has had a powerful effect.

This year, for the first time, there will be more walking nights than driving nights.

1. Last year's festival was 1/3 people power, 2/3 engines. This year there will be 15 non-driving nights vs.13 driving nights.
2. Last year's festival deployed buses on walking nights to shuttle visitors from parking lots far from the walking route. This year the LADWP will discontinue the buses and direct visitors to the Zoo parking lot, saving $$$ and lowering pollution.
3. Last year's festival prohibited bicycles except for a single Bike Night. Although the LADWP did not accede to the request that bikes enjoy nightly access, this year it will make extra bike racks available at both ends of the light display.

Another significant change...this year's event will be ten days shorter, beginning on December 3 instead of Thanksgiving week.

Incremental progress is being made towards a combustion-engine free Light Festival. Whether you sent a letter or an e-mail, advocated in person or petitioned, we thank you. As we go forward, there are several ways to continue to promote reform...walk this year's fest and document it, send positive feedback to the LADWP for the changes it has made (contact info following), and please e-mail me or the GGPNC if you have other ideas.

The breakdown of the survey and the official LADWP announcement of 2009 Light Festival dates are copied below.

Thanks again for your advocacy,
Bernadette Soter
Parks, River and Open Space Committee (PROS)
Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council (GGPNC)  

The GGPNC received approximately 125 opinions. Here is the breakdown

- 105 respondents preferred an engine-free festival with all walking and bicycling nights
- 6 respondents preferred a festival with some walking and some driving nights
- 1 respondent preferred a festival with all driving nights
- 7 respondents felt that the festival should be moved from Griffith Park to another setting
- 7 respondents felt that the festival should be discontinued entirely

You may wonder why we reprint articles wholesale here.  Over time, sources move or remove old articles causing simple links to expire. This material is important in the context of Griffith Park and we don't want to lose it.

We credit everything and put in the proper links. This article is from today's Curbed LA. Please visit their blog.
-------

Amid Lawsuit, LA Zoo Elephant Habitat Goes Forward

Friday, October 16, 2009
by Adrian Glick Kudler

But how is LA Zoo construction doing in this recession? Quite well, it turns out, as work continues on the zoo's contentious Pachyderm Forest, which has been in a jeopardy a few times, including last December when the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee voted to stop work on the exhibit. The full City Council turned that decision around a couple months later. Now zoo rep Jason Jacobs tells Curbed the last phase of construction is more than a third done, and the zoo is projecting an opening in November 2010. But there's still a lawsuit pending that charges Los Angeles Zoo with abusing elephants. Last month, a judge ruled that a trial in that case could go forward, the Los Angeles Times reported. For their part, the zoo's website says, "an independent review of our elephant program conducted by the City Administrative Officer in 2005 reported that the care and management of elephants currently provided by the Zoo meets the highest standards."

The new space will be made up of three connected yards on