GPW: Self-Tempered Anarchy since 2009


Your GPW Editor-on-Occasion is Petra Fried in the City.
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stories along The Way

Friday, July 16, 2010

Morning around the park

The heat is on, and all "shelter and welfare" activities in Los Angeles fall to the Department of Recreation and Parks who will be opening their cooling centers at SFV park facilities this weekend.

Times and locations: 
Saturday (10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.)
Sunday (Noon to 9:00 p.m.)
  • Canoga Park Senior Citizen Center --7326 Jordan Avenue, Canoga Park
  • North Hollywood Senior Citizen Center --11430 Chandler Boulevard, North Hollywood
  • Sepulveda Rec Center/Mid-Valley Senior Citizen Center -- 8801 Kester Avenue, Panorama City
  • Sunland Park Senior Citizen Center -- 8640 Fenwick Street, Sunland
  • Sylmar Recreation Center -- 13109 Borden Avenue, Sylmar
  • Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Senior Citizen Center -- 5040 Van Nuys Boulevard, Sherman Oaks
  • Wilkinson Senior Citizen Center -- 8956 Vanalden Avenue, Northridge

The City of Glendale is determined to build a bridge into Griffith Park, dammit, and you can't stop them.  The need for this bridge goes basically undocumented, but Mulholland Terrace was pretty clear with his feeling that it is simply that Glendale wants access to LA's greatest asset.
Glendale is considering a number of different potential locations of the bridge, and none of them correspond to the location where Tom LaBonge claims he has been trying to put a bridge for years: on the Atwater Village side. Equestrians in Atwater, including the LAPD mounted unit, have to actually ford the river from the Atwater Rancho area - a dangerous proposition almost any time of year. A bridge with an equestrian component from Atwater is a matter of public safety regardless of cost.
The logical thing for LaBonge to do is work with Glendale to accommodate both sets of need, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Perhaps LaBonge is too busy organizing the CRA's hostile takeover of a section of Atwater that includes his "River Glen" pipe dream to work on this much-wanted public safety need.

You can send your comments on which location Glendale should choose to:

John Pearson - Project Manager
Glendale Narrows Riverwalk
613 East Broadway - Room 120
Glendale CA 91206-4399


Speaking of Tom LaBonge, we're amused that he is taking credit for cancelling the EcoMoron Award-winning DWP Holiday Lights Festival, claiming that DWP work in the park makes it too unsafe.

It's interesting: LaBonge had no qualms last year of spending hundreds of thousands in ratepayer money to force the DWP to stop work on the same project for the Light Festival. The real reason for the stoppage this year?  The King of Los Angeles, one Austin Beutner, told Tommy "no" in a letter we've seen. Hats off ... we guess... to LaBonge for trying the lame spin.

Lucky for us (?), LaBonge promises there will be some kind of celebration in a park somewhere. Guess we know which park, and who will be paying for it. Let's just hope it isn't as tacky as LaBonge's snore of a "Santa Parade".