Sad legacy of Rec and Parks' GM Jon Kirk Mukri

Hard working city employees are really starting to wonder what in the heck is going on with Rec and Parks' once-popular General Manager Jon Kirk Mukri.

The word on the street: Mukri's top guy -Assistant Gen. Manager Kevin Regan - has the entire department either hating him, terrified of him, or believing he is a complete lunatic. From multiple detailed reports, Regan apparently abuses employees to the point that most of the professional and skilled ones who are forced to work under his tyranny can't wait for those 'Golden Handshakes'** from the Mayor to materialize so they can bail out.

Regan supposedly terrorizes less educated employees and makes educated, motivated employees hate coming to work. He bad-mouths his own department's employees to other departments, and to other employees. Every management action is rumored to be punitive. Employees are either set up to fail, or they have every ounce of initiative beaten out them by Regan's pico-managing* actions. A possibly over-promoted arborist, Regan doesn't seem to really know what he wants, so he makes it up as he goes along while his false-starts and declarations keep workers wondering if their job will even exist the next time they come in. A number have confided to this blog that they don't want to even be in the same room with Regan because they know he's going to beat them up, no matter how good a job they're doing.

(*pico is even smaller than micro - look it up.)

In short - AGM Kevin Regan is the perfect example of everything any good manager should avoid at all costs.

Tellingly, Kevin Regan is also the epitome of old Recreation and Parks culture - exactly the culture Jon Kirk Mukri swore to eliminate when he left the General Services Department to head Recreation and Parks.

Unless Mukri gets control of the tyrant acting in his name, Mukri's tenure as General Manager will be forever linked with the largest loss of job knowledge that the Department -- and perhaps even the City -- will ever experience.

Rumor has it the Park Ranger Division will be the first large casualty, with 120 years of experience just waiting to jump on those retirement packages as soon as they're available. Similar losses for the exact same reason in the Forestry Division and Golf Division are right behind them.

What a sad legacy for Mukri to leave the children and people of Los Angeles with!

(**Golden Handshakes might be on hold as the City's entire budget process is collapsing even as we type this.)

Canned Ham Redux

Greetings on a Friday!

On Monday, Tom and fellow Coliseum Commissioners honored Olympic medalist, Rafer Johnson, who lit the Torch to open the Los Angeles games in 1984. The Decathlon silver medalist in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and gold medalist in the 1960 Rome games can now add bronze to his “metals”; he received a bronze plaque in the Court of Honor at the entrance to the Coliseum.

On Tuesday, Tom joined the Postal Service in saluting the LAPD on its 140th anniversary with the unveiling of a Dragnet First-Class postage stamp. Cast members from the 1951 television series were on hand at the Elysian Park Police Academy, as well as LAPD Chief William Bratton.

The Councilmember declared Wednesday “Wizard of Oz” Day in honor of the 70th anniversary of the 1939 film. Jerry Maren, one of the original Lollipop Kids, and his wife Elizabeth, greeted fans gathered around the Munchkins’ star in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

On Thursday, Tom held a press conference with The Wende Museum of the Cold War, to introduce an upcoming commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The large scale installation will feature a symbolic Wall, spanning Wilshire Blvd. on Sunday, Nov. 8 in front of LACMA’s Urban Light exhibit. The Councilmember also introduced the new Consul General of Germany, Mr. Wolfgang Drautz.

To highlight the City’s 69th Annual Nisei Week, the Mayor of Nagoya, Japan arrived in Los Angeles on Friday. Tom, who chairs the Sister Cities Committee, introduced him and his delegation at Council and invited him to his office, where the Councilman was interviewed on a variety of issues.

The City Council will be in recess until September 1, 2009.

Remove Autry Board from Fiduciary Control of SWM

With the Autry supposedly pulling out of their planned Griffith Park expansion, the question now is about what they may try to do with the Southwest Museum site and collection. So far, all they have done is spin spin spin. But from what they have said so far regarding the Southwest, by the sound of John Gray's letter (see below) they plan on a basic dissociation of the Southwest as a unified entity.

Dissociating the Southwest would be a violation of the merger agreement between the two entities. Backing this assertion is a paper trail that can be followed in the Los Angeles City Clerk's council files archive from roughly 2001 through 2007. It remains to be seen whether the Los Angeles City Council, Jose Huizar, and the Friends of the Southwest Museum can muster enough to force the Autry to keep their word.

So the race is on. The Autry will be trying to make a buck on the Southwest before the City gets its act together. Given the typical speed at which the City does anything, the Autry stands to succeed. One way to stop this from happening is to force the Autry board to give up fiduciary control of the historic property and its inventory. It's been done before. From the NY Times....

-----------------------

April 30, 2008
Montana Museum Board Breached Duty, Court Says

The Montana Supreme Court dismissed on Tuesday the board of the Charles M. Bair Family Museum in Martinsdale, Mont., saying it breached its fiduciary duties by closing the museum from 2002 to 2005. The court said the board had not spent enough money to give a good start to the museum — home to an eclectic collection of fine European antiques, valuable art works and priceless Indian artifacts. It ordered U.S. Bank, the trustee, to create a new board that has to meet within six months.

“As a result of the board’s failure to spend ‘whatever principal and income of the Charles M. Bair Family Trust that is necessary to improve and maintain the museum,’ the museum never received a fair opportunity to succeed; the museum was destined for failure rather than success,” the court wrote in its opinion, quoting the trust document. “The board’s ensuing breaches emanated from this initial failure.”

U.S. Bank had not seen the ruling and had no comment, said a spokesman, Steve Dale. It controlled four of the five seats on the trust’s board of advisers, which oversaw the museum.
The case has been widely watched in the nonprofit world and among state regulators of charities. The regulators are often responsible for interpreting and defending donors’ intentions long after their deaths and in the face of strong opposition from powerful boards. Thirteen states filed amicus briefs in support of the Montana attorney general.

“It’s great news,” said the attorney general, Mike McGrath. “The Montana Supreme Court said the board does not have unfettered discretion.”

The case was brought by a community group, the Friends of the Bair Museum, whose members were overjoyed. “The little guy won,” said Jamie Doggett, chairwoman of the group. “The court realized that this was Alberta’s first and foremost desire to have the museum in her home in Martinsdale in memory of her father.”

Alberta is Alberta M. Bair, the strong-willed, quirky heiress who favored red hats and vodka and established the trust that had financed the museum. She died in 1993, leaving the fortune her father had amassed in minerals, finance and sheep. The trust created on her death stated that it was her “cherished aim and foremost desire” to establish a museum in the Bair family house, where she and her sister, Marguerite, had gathered their collection. She directed the board to spend whatever necessary from the trust’s principal and interest to maintain the museum and buy property, if needed.

She also gave the board the option of closing the museum after five years. The board members said that attendance had declined, that the house was ill suited to be a museum and that it lacked adequate security and protection against fire as the collection was increasing in value. From 2002 to 2005, the value of just the art collection increased 40 percent, to $6.7 million. Some of the most valuable pieces were moved to other institutions at the board’s discretion, reducing the attraction, and the court did not order their return. Mr. McGrath said he expected an accord with the new board.

Ms. Doggett said reopening the museum would be a boon to the Martindale economy. “People stop and look at a museum,” she said. “Not just a display on the wall, but to go into someone’s home and see how they lived.”

Griffith Park is the Big Winner

In his interpretation of what happened today when the Autry Museum pulled out of their Griffith Park expansion plans, veteran Daily News editor Ron Kaye cast the move as having "no winner".

Griffith Park users should take serious umbrage with this assertion. In the tug of war that started at the June 30th Board of Referred Powers meeting, Griffith Park had absolutely no representation in the discussion. In fact, the man who should have been speaking up for the park and for the taxpayers, Tom LaBonge, didn't even show up for the hearing, choosing instead to send a staffer who intoned monotonously that 'Tom LaBonge supports the full Autry expansion in Griffith Park.' (the end)

Until this afternoon's revelation, it looked like the park land would be given over completely to the terribly inappropriate ballooning of an Autry Museum whose annual attendance barely hits 1% of the total who go to the park to enjoy it as open space each year.

Suddenly the Autry makes their move in the chess match, pulling out of the grossly self-indulgent expansion plan.

Time now for Councilman Jose Huizar and the Friends of the Southwest Museum to force the Autry to make good on their merger promises without Griffith Park in the picture. Go get'em!

Letter from John Gray to Autry Supporters

August 11, 2009

Because you are a valued member of the Autry National Center whose loyal support is vital to our institution, I want to make sure that you learn directly from us about a recent decision of our Trustees. Today, with great reluctance, we informed the City's Board of Referred Powers that we are withdrawing our proposal to build an expansion of the Autry's building in Griffith Park. It has become clear to us that if we were to go on seeking approval for our proposal, our plans would be subjected to expensive and virtually endless official delays, while the Autry itself would be under constant threat of costly litigation. Given these circumstances, we have concluded that any further attempt to proceed with the expansion would be an ill-advised diversion of our financial resources, and an insupportable distraction from our work in serving the community.

We want you to know that this difficult decision follows upon the latest delay in the political process for approving the expansion. We have been informed that the Board of Referred Powers has postponed ruling on our proposal indefinitely, until such time as we contract to operate our Mt. Washington campus solely as a freestanding facility for the Southwest Museum. No responsible Board of Trustees could agree to this commitment. If imposed on us, it would return the Mt. Washington campus to a model of operation that has been conclusively proved to be financially destructive and curatorially unviable. We cannot and must not go backward-and so, having made the only feasible decision, we will now move forward on two fronts.

On the first front, at Griffith Park, we will be developing fresh options for creating an inclusive and exciting experience within the existing facility. To some extent, this process has already begun through our ambitious schedule of exhibitions and programs. This fall, we will present The Art of Native American Basketry, revealing for the first time more than 250 baskets from the premier collection of the Southwest Museum. In spring 2010 we will present Home Lands: How Women Made the West, which will use historic artifacts, art, photographs, and biographies of individual women to show how women have been at the heart of the West across cultures and over time. We will continue to develop the Griffith Park building into a new treasure for Los Angeles, honoring all the diverse peoples of the American West.

Meanwhile, on the second front, we are working on an exciting and sustainable plan for our Mt. Washington campus. Since 2003, we have invested approximately $7.5 million in conserving the Southwest Museum collections that have been housed there and in repairing and stabilizing the landmark building. While this work continues, we are studying how to transform the Mt. Washington campus into a multi-use educational and cultural center, with publicly accessible exhibitions and collections from the Southwest Museum at its core. The center would also incorporate classes for all ages, conducted with partner institutions; an archaeology study center; research facilities; and space for cultural activities of Native American communities. An institution is more than its buildings. It is a shared vision.

We feel confident that we will realize our vision of a nationally recognized Autry National Center-one that will celebrate the American West and explore the interactions of all of its cultures and peoples. Should you be interested, a copy of the letter we sent to the Board of Referred Powers is posted on our website, http://autrymuseum.pmailus.com/pmailweb/ct?d=I6ldzwAWAAEAAA5zAAMS8g.

We are deeply grateful to you, as always, for your understanding and support. We look forward to sharing our plans with you as they evolve.

Sincerely,
John L. Gray
President and CEO

Autry's Griffith Park Development Dream Collapses!

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-GS for GPW

From the LA TIMES:

Autry drops plans for $175-million expansion at Griffith Park site
12:02 PM, August 11, 2009

The Autry National Center has bowed out of a protracted battle for a $175-million expansion of its facility in Griffith Park.

City approval of the plan hinged on a recent demand for the Autry to make a legally binding commitment to support the Southwest Museum as a fully functioning art institution in perpetuity. In a letter delivered to members of the Los Angeles City Council today, the Autry stated that such a commitment would be irresponsible and that it is withdrawing its proposal.

“Any further attempt to proceed with the proposed expansion project in Griffith Park would be an ill-advised diversion of our financial resources and an insupportable distraction from our work in serving the community,” Autry President John L.Gray stated in the letter. “We come to this decision with reluctance and deep regret — but the constant delays, the past and future costs, the unyielding insistence on financial and programmatic commitments which we cannot responsibly make, and the prospect of future expensive and debilitating litigation all demand that we fulfill the Autry’s vision under different circumstances.”

The Autry proposed a two-phase project that would have increased its Griffith Park building from 142,000 square feet to 271,000 square feet, including exhibition and visible storage space for the Southwest’s collection. Despite the setback, Autry leaders say they will carry out their vision by continuing to care for the Southwest’s Native American art collection and historic building, and converting Autry storage space into galleries.

Check back with Culture Monster later today for updates on this report.

-- Suzanne Muchnic

A Rivulet (actually, many of them) Runs Through It

A number of creeks still run underground in Griffith Park, including one under Toyon Canyon landfill. Discussion continues on how to restore these creeks to the surface where wildlife and plantlife alike would benefit. -GPW

From the Los Angeles Times

Despite our efforts to control, channel and divert water, small underground streams still flow beneath L.A., as they have for many centuries. They are a reminder of the region before it was tamed.

By Hector Tobar

Here in Los Angeles, we've paved over almost all of the coastal sagebrush, bulldozed hillsides, channeled our rivers and streams, and filled in our creek beds. Mother Nature has taken a real beating. But she hasn't given up the fight.In the middle of August, weeks after the last serious rain, she is sending pure, cool water flowing through the city of Los Angeles and environs. The fresh water runs in a handful of places as it has for centuries, in the perennial streams and riverbeds that soothed the thirst of Spanish explorers and settlers almost 300 years ago, and before them, the Tongva Indians.

Underneath the Westside traffic on Wilshire Boulevard, a small creek flows south. It's filled with groundwater that's percolated, very slowly, down from the Santa Monica Mountains. Near the corner of Wilshire and Barrington Avenue, the stream makes a right turn, then surges upward through an earthquake fault on the campus of University High School in Sawtelle. Last week, I watched the water bubble up at a spring next to a school science building. At the bottom of a pond about 12 inches deep, I could see the water pushing up through sand, oozing like some Hollywood special effect.

"Seeing this is like a religious experience," said Jessica Hall, who writes for the “L.A. Creek Freak” blog.

Indeed, there was something miraculous about reaching down into a pool of water in the middle of L.A.'s urban sprawl, and then cupping my hand to take a drink. I felt transported in time to the unspoiled Los Angeles that was a little village surrounded by rivers that ran rocky and free. I also got a taste, perhaps, of the Los Angeles of the future. Before it was developed in the 20th century, the western half of Los Angeles was covered with streams, most of them tributaries of Ballona Creek. Hall, 41, is one of a small band of activists who are documenting that old watershed and trying to bring stretches of it back to life.

She can tell you where streams like the Flower Garden River used to flow. Or the Sacatela, which ran south from Los Feliz -- underneath the current location of the famous Shakespeare Bridge -- all the way to the Mid-Wilshire district. Beneath the asphalt and concrete, Los Angeles is a city crisscrossed with dormant streams. Hall tracks their paths using old U.S. Geological Survey maps, aerial photographs and what she finds during long walks through the city.

"Los Angeles is a place that's been treated as if it were a blank slate, a place where you can build whatever you want," Hall said. But the landscape still retains much of its original topography. It is still a creation of nature. And when the rains come, the water still pretty much follows the old paths."

There's a beauty to accepting the place you live in and getting to know what makes it unique," Hall said. Bits of these old streams still carry water in summer. Last week, I watched a creek cut through the Wilshire Country Club in Hancock Park. Through the fence at the golf course's southern boundary, near the intersection of 3rd Street and Hudson Avenue, the water empties into a concrete culvert, moving southward. This is the old Río del Jardin de las Flores, a stream that still flows through backyards in Brookside Estates.

When Hall first learned about the stream a decade ago, she was stunned. She had grown up in a South Bay suburb seemingly devoid of rivers, creeks and other wild things.

"I thought I knew L.A.," she remembered. "I thought: 'There's no streams in L.A.' "

When she found the Río del Jardin de las Flores, it set her off on a quest in search of more rivers. Eventually, her explorations led her to people like Angie Behrns, who can still remember what it was like to live in a city of untamed streams. Behrns, 71, is from a family of Gabrielino Indians, another name for the Tongva people. The flowing water at the University High campus holds a special place in her memory.

"This is part of my history," she told me when I visited the springs. "Four generations of my family have come here.

"The Gabrielinos, she said, have always treasured the waters for their healing powers. She attended University High in the 1950s. And when she hurt her wrist playing volleyball there, her father told her: "Put your hand in those springs and you'll be cured."

The springs were once the site of a Gabrielino village. In August 1769, the Spanish explorers and missionaries led by Gaspar de Portola stopped there, finding "little houses roofed with grass," according to an expedition diary. Today a huge Mexican cypress tree looms over the springs, which feed a pond and a small waterfall overlooking a softball field. About 22,000 gallons flow through the springs every day. Spanish teacher Maria Lomeli says University High students often take sips from the waterfall after P.E. classes. The water then slips into a storm drain, working its way eventually into Ballona Creek and the Pacific. But for the storm drain, the waters would flood the campus and many acres more in the surrounding neighborhood. That's why the little creek was channeled in the first place -- to drain the marshlands and create dry land for development.

Most of L.A.'s old, perennial streams were channeled into the concrete flood-control system in the last century. But their waters still make up at least part of that narrow trickle we see year-round in all the major rivers in the Los Angeles Basin, including Ballona Creek and the Los Angeles River. These days a lot of people are hard at work restoring pieces of the Los Angeles River to their former natural glory. Hall showed me plans to "daylight" portions of Sacatela Creek, allowing it to run above ground through some of the most densely populated corners of the city.

"Daylighting" the Sacatela and a few streams more is an undeniably good idea. Let their waters flow and we will make Los Angeles a greener and more livable place. And we will be a step closer to the natural rhythms of that earthly paradise California once was, and might once again be.

hector.tobar@latimes.com

Park(ing) Day LA: A Cry for Parks and Public Space

When you add up all the park land in town, Los Angeles turns out to be the most park-poor large city in the United States. If you remove Griffith Park from the total, you basically cut the total park acreage in Los Angeles by HALF.

Park(ing) Day LA is one way to draw attention to this issue. It should be pointed out, though, that simply adding park land is not the answer to Los Angeles's problems. With each new acre of park land added, there MUST be funding and positions added to the Department of Recreation and Parks' budget for maintenance, programming, and public safety/park rangers.

The addition of the means to care and service new park land should be required, and a City Charter amendment may be needed to see that the citizens of Los Angeles get the sustainable parks and the true social justice they deserve.

Park(ing) Day LA is September 18, 2009

-GPW

-----
By Stephen Box (SoapboxLA)

Park[ing] Day LA is underway and activists, artists, urban planners and neighborhood councils are preparing to step up to the curb, place a quarter in the meter and then transform curbside park[ing] space into temporary parks, all in an effort to stir a dialogue on public space. The East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, holding the title of park-poorest NC in the city, will be [re]claiming public space and building a Recreation Center on Heliotrope, installing a swimming pool, grilling up food on a bbq, entertaining guests with music and volleyball, creating live art and challenging the community to imagine a neighborhood with ... brace yourself...parks within walking distance of the people!

Organized by Alfredo "the Park Czar" Hernandez, the East Hollywood NC is planning a demonstration of Parkland Alchemy as the "temporary" park is transformed, the next day, into a permanent park within the NC boundaries.

LA Guerrilla Garden[ing] will be taking all of the drought resistant native plants used on Park[ing] Day and will build a small park for the community as a demonstration of the "leave things better than you found them" commitment of the Park[ing] Day LA grass roots movement.

LA's Greensters will be handling all the heavy-lifting needs for the East Hollywood transformation from temporary park to permanent park, utilizing Xtracycles, trailers and wagons in a pedal-powered display of sustainable transportation and as a demonstration of fact that LA is simply a great place to ride a bike!

Recycled Movie, the production company that turns kids into movie moguls, will have their recycling trailer on site throughout the event and will be documenting Park[ing] Day LA while fulfilling their mandate to make recycling a routine activity that puts kids to work and also funds their filmmaking endeavors.

Park[ing] Day originated in San Francisco in 2005 when (Re)Bar, a small group of artists, opened eyes worldwide by transforming a metered park[ing] spot into a park-for-a-day. That simple act served as a significant commentary on the lack of quality open space in American cities and resulted in Park[ing] Day celebrations around the world. This is the third annual Park[ing] Day LA and participants have engaged their communities with a wide variety of parks and public space perspectives, all of them challenging the status quo.

The EHNC Park[ing] Day LA activities are designed to engage the community, stir a dialogue, provide a venue for a celebration and to simply "change the world!" This ambitious and visionary project is a clear demonstration that the future of LA's open space requires us all to ...Step up to the curb, look at all of that public space and ask "Why not?"

For more information on Park[ing] Day LA visit http://parkingdayla.com/.

Autry Board Goes For Broke

At the most recent board of directors' meeting, the Autry voted to tell Councilman Jose Huizar (CD14), the Southwest Museum Society, the Friends of the Southwest Museum, and the citizens of Los Angeles to effectively 'go to hell', threatening the City with taking both their museum and the billion dollar collection of the Southwest Museum out of town. The exact quote from John Gray or one of their board muckie-mucks went something like... '...you don't want to be responsible for losing both the Autry Museum AND the Southwest, do you?'

(read CM Huizar's response)

Oh my. Lose the Autry? That austere institute, quietly nestled on eleven acres of invaluable open space in Griffith Park for a mere $1 per year that taxpayers subsidize to the tune of $27.5 million? That bastion of academic fortitude? The keeper of all true history related to the American West?

What a huge loss to the upper eschelons of the academic community if the Autry were to leave LA! I mean, after all, just look at their most recent offering, absolutely steeped in the true essence of the American West.

WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT THIS MUSEUM ?


From the Autry's web site:

On display starting July 28, 2009

The Autry National Center is proud to announce the installation of the two intertwined shirts worn by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the Focus Features 2005 groundbreaking film Brokeback Mountain, also starring Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway.

The shirts will be displayed as part of a reinstallation of the Contemporary Westerns case in the Autry’s Imagination Gallery. Directed by Oscar winner Ang Lee, the film is adapted from the short story by Pulitzer Prize–winning author E. Annie Proulx in her Close Range: Wyoming Stories collection. The shirts are on loan from collector, producer, and socio political commentator Tom Gregory.

The Western genre is an American art form that has played a crucial role in the development of American popular culture. Putting the Western into a larger historical context, the Imagination Gallery shows how the genre has evolved over the last one hundred years in response to social and cultural changes taking place in America. The iconic shirts are at the center of the Contemporary Westerns case in order to highlight Brokeback Mountain’s significance in keeping the Western genre alive and thriving in the new millennium, and also to spotlight the LGBT community’s struggle for safety and inclusion in the rural, Western communities from where many originate yet often feel forced to abandon....

Canned Ham

Greetings on a Friday! For information on any of these items or to see photos from an event Tom attended this week, please visit the Council District 4 website at: www.tomlabonge.com

-On Tuesday, Tom visited all Los Angeles Police Divisions in Council District 4 for the 26th Annual National Night Out. There was a greatturnout, and the LAPD did a fantastic job of creating a street fair atmosphere, with food and live music. National Night Out is a unique crime/drug prevention event involving law enforcement agencies, civic groups, businesses and neighborhood organizations from over 15,000 communities nationwide.

-On Thursday morning Tom re-opened the east side of Lake Hollywood. An enthusiastic group of residents, media, and representatives of the LADWP joined Tom in a power-walk around the scenic route. They were treated to a view of one of the turtles that has made the Lake home. This was the first time the eastern side of the recreational path has been open since the record rainfall of 2005.

- On Thursday, Tom joined with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Police Chief William Bratton, Council President Eric Garcetti and Captain Bea Girmalato announce the new deployment plan of 40 additional foot patrol officers in Hollywood. This “Back to the Beat” program will continue the reduction of crime and increase the quality of life for those who work, live and visit the entertainment capital of the world.

-On Sunday, August 9th from noon to 4:30 p.m., the 24th Annual Children’s Festival of Arts will take place at Paramount Pictures Studio located at 5555 Melrose Avenue. This Free Children’s Festivalis a day-long celebration of the arts and culture in Hollywood. Formore information, please visit: http://www.hollywoodartscouncil.org/

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

Remembrance for Lily Burk this Sunday

This is not quite about Griffith Park, but close enough as it affects the entire community. The service for Lily Burk will be at Barnsdall Art Park on Sunday.

From Lily's parents:

A remembrance for Lily Burk, daughter of Greg Burk and Deborah Drooz, will be held Sunday, August 9, at 4:30pm. Location: The Great Lawn at Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., eastern Hollywood, California 90027. The park is on a steep hill with many stairs. However, shuttle vehicles will be available to assist. Parking is limited. But watch for signs and parking attendants; we may be procuring some space from nearby Kaiser.

We have been greatly moved by the outpouring of support. No more flowers or gifts, though, please; we are swamped. For any who wish to donate, Lily’s favorite charity was Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, at which she volunteered in the needle-exchange program.

Your friends,
Greg and Deborah

Major Griffith Park Wildlife Corridor Threatened

According to Zach Behrens at LAist.com via the Huffington Post, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy's private foundation (the MRCA) is roughly $150,000 short of being able to purchase 500 acres of open space at Laurel Canyon and Mulholland.

It cannot be overstated how important this wildlife corridor is to the health and welfare of the entire ecosystem in the greater Griffith Park area. August 17th is the deadline and the MRCA is hoping poverty-stricken Los Angeles City will come up with the funds. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking! Hey City Council - how about sending about 1/2 of one percent of that $30 million loan you're giving Cirque du Soleil so we can save our entire local wilderness ecosystem from collapse! What do you say?

In the meantime, open your wallets and send the MRCA some bank if you can.

The sad details, from LAist:

Paul Edelman, the Chief Ecologist for both the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency, and the Authority, has made a case for Los Angeles to put money behind saving this land on the Huffington Post:

As part of a contiguous 500-acre block of urban wilderness, this property is essential for wildlife to cross Laurel Canyon Boulevard to reach Nichols and Runyon Canyons and eventually the 5,000-acre Griffith Park. Scenic Mulholland Drive and the wildlife populations east of Laurel Canyon will never be the same if this land is further developed.
Please urge the community at large to spread the importance of this land acquisition effort and encourage those able to make donations to do so, in order to keep this campaign alive. As incentive, the largest donor will receive permanent park naming and signage rights (make that, tasteful signage rights) for this highly-trafficked area. All donations are fully tax-deductible.
The coming weeks will dictate whether the greater Los Angeles community will forever regret not raising the money necessary to keep the heart of the mountain range breathing, or if it will, as the most popular signs in canyon read, allow it to live in "peace."

Edelman emphasizes the traffic hell to be during construction, if that happens. Currently, the intersection is two points south of Hell.

Part of Hollywood Reservoir Trail Reopens Today

Half of the scenic Hollywood Reservoir trail reopens today for foot traffic.

The trail was closed in 2005 after being heavily damaged by major rain storm water runoff that year. the rest of the trail will reopen in 2011.

If you use the new trail in the next few days, please leave a review of your impressions in the comments here.

Yet Another Museum Has Eyes on 'Free Land' in Griffith

Did you know that someone in City Council District Four was quietly entertaining the idea of handing over Griffith Park land to a private entity yet again. In this case, maybe someone who absolutely idolizes Walt Disney? (Councilman Tom LaBonge) Isn't the Autry abomination enough, sir?

So what are we talking about: according to CartoonBrew.com, the new (Walt) Disney Family Museum currently being constructed at the Presidio in San Francisco was slated to be built on.... Griffith Park land. According to a quote in the comments section of the article:

...but a source close to the Walt Disney Family Foundation ... writes that:

The Presidio site was chosen for its historic interest, proximity to the Millers’ homes in San Francisco and Napa, and the fact that their Family Foundation already occupies space in the Presidio near the Lucas Letterman campus. There was initially some talk of siting the museum in Griffith Park, but it was decided that there was potential confusion about the Museum’s ties to the Company by being located so close to the Studio and Corporate Headquarters. The cooperation and collaboration with the Company is unprecedented and quite friendly, and has the full support and enthusiasm of many Disney businesses from Bob Iger down. Disney is providing full access to their photo collection and film libraries, as well as the loan of several key objects...

As far as anyone can determine, it looks like the construction in SF puts an end to this idea. However, if some piece of land had been proffered to the Disney family, they may come back to it in the future with new plans for development.

It would be nice to hear from the council office exactly which parcel was on the table.

Unresolved Issues with City's "update" to Cultural Heritage Ordinance

After forcing the City machine to approve Griffth Park as a Cultural Historic Landmark, the City is exacting a revenge of sorts on the Cultural Heritage Commission by "updating" the ordinance that allowed Griffith to receive this protection.

From Jane Usher, ex-Planning Commission chair:

The City's updated Cultural Heritage Ordinance will be acted upon by the City Planning Commission on September 10. Mark your calendars for this important preservation measure. The unresolved issue concerning historic interiors is discussed by Ken Bernstein below. Jane

Message dated 7/10/2009 2:48:44 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time from Ken.Bernstein:

Dear Jane,

I'm sorry that you found my previous response to be disconcerting. As I'd indicated in my last message, our staff report to the City Planning Commission did represent our best professional planning recommendation. At the June 11 CPC hearing, staff was asked by the Commission to look at the issue of interior designation, and to continue discussions with the development community and property owners.

The issue of the designation of private interiors is a very difficult one for planners and preservationists across the country because it raises both legal and practical ambiguities. This issue did not come up in our initial public hearings on the ordinance, nor in the deliberations of a Cultural Heritage Ordinance Working Group that met last year, but was raised forcefully by property owners in recent months and at the CPC. Our response to the CPC was based upon a review of "best practices" in dozens of local ordinances, and we have consulted with the professional staff at the State Office of Historic Preservation.

As we looked more carefully at these practices, we found that the cities we most admire for historic preservation -- New York, Charleston, New Orleans, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Sacramento, Philadelphia, and many others -- either limit designations to exteriors only or allow designations of only publicly accessible interiors. Pasadena does allow for designation of interior fixtures at its handful of Greene and Greene homes, but otherwise limits its designations to exteriors.

The new proposed ordinance language allows property owners to agree to include their private interior spaces in designations and automatically includes private interiors that are under Mills Act Historical Property Contracts and Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits. These provisions would provide more overall protection of historic interiors than is provided in the other major cities I've cited. I hope that this is helpful background in understanding why our staff recommendation evolved on this issue.

Ken

Body Found in Griffith Park

The body of an unknown woman was found in Western Canyon yesterday morning. According to KNX quoting LAPD, the remains were discovered by a hiker who had the unfortunate experience of 'smelling a very foul odor' around 11:40 a.m. about 100 yards off a path near the 2800 block of East Observatory Road.

Unofficially, most authorities are fairly sure the woman was killed somewhere else and simply dumped in the park, so there isn't any kind of patron warning going out at this time. Stay tuned. We'll report any changes - if any - to this situation as it related to the safety of park users.

It is interesting that Councilman Tom LaBonge didn't rush to hold a press conference showing himself in command on this one.

Image from KCAL 9.

Hearing on Autry Expansion in Griffith Park Delayed

(Article courtesy Friends of the Southwest Museum who have partnered with Griffith Park advocates to protect the park's interest in the Autry's desired expansion: a proposed tripling of the Autry building size plus up to 100 additional signs and billboards, a 100' tower, new liquor license, etc. on Griffith Park land for only $1.00 per month in rent.

At this point in time, it is very disconcerting that no one is officially representing Griffith Park and the public who uses this important park land in these negotiations. Tom LaBonge, the councilman in whose district this project lies, is 100% for handing the Autry everything they want.

The Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council is the most obvious choice for a place at this negotiation table to speak for the park. It remains to be seen if a "table" even materializes as the posturing of the Autry continues.)


City Hearing Postponed as Autry Rebukes Any Negotiation for Southwest Museum

Yesterday, July 28, 2009, Board of Referred Powers Chair Janice Hahn accepted a request from Councilmember José Huizar for additional time to work on getting the Autry National Center’s Board of Directors to agree to a legally binding commitment for the Southwest Museum and Casa de Adobe in its proposed lease amendment with the City. (Tony Cardenas is the new chair of the Board of Referred Powers for 2009-10 - ed.)

Councilmember Huizar seeks such a condition to assure Autry will not simply take the Southwest Museum’s Collection to an expanded Autry museum building in Griffith Park and abandon or sell the Southwest Museum site. For this reason, Huizar has requested a continuance of the further hearing of the Autry’s expansion plan in Griffith Park until after August 31, 2009.

The reason given from his letter of request: “I have been acting in good faith to bring agreement and/or compromise to the issue at hand. However, I do not believe that the Autry has taken seriously the Board of Referred Power’s instructions to work out with me options for a legally binding document. The Autry Center has essentially threatened to abandon its expansion project at Griffith Park altogether if I continue to pursue with them any document which legally binds them to its commitments made to me and to the City of Los Angeles.”

Councilmember Huizar is to be applauded for his leadership as he has been working diligently these past 4 weeks. As the first elected official to be publicly granted a meeting directly with the Board of Directors in regards to this issue, he now has first hand knowledge of the Autry decision-maker’s position.

Our Coalition was asked by his staff to select just two people to represent the entire 70 organizations and many individuals to meet with the Councilmember. Mark Kenyon and I participated in two meetings with the Councilmember to discuss the longstanding position of the Coalition: a legally binding agreement and a fully functional Southwest Museum. (And submitted to him supporting documents.)

At the second meeting on Thursday, July 23rd, we agreed with the Councilmember that the three key items needed were:

1) legally binding commitment that could be accomplished in various forms

2) 12,500 sq ft. of exhibition space for the Southwest Collection at the historic museum facility (or Option B from the Brenda Levin study)

3) a timeline for re-opening

Just last evening, CM Huizar invited 11 organizational representatives from Council District 14 to a meeting in which he shared this information and a newly adopted resolution from the Autry Board that opposes any negotiation with the City that would address the issues for the Southwest Museum and Casa de Adobe.

We strongly urge you to read these documents, available at our website: http://www.friendsofthesouthwestmuseum.com/AutryBoardResoLtrBoRP072409.pdf

There was overwhelming agreement and support at this meeting for the Councilmember to continue to pursue a legally binding commitment and the exhibition space allocation of Option B. And, everyone one was willing to support him in this endeavor.

This is a fast moving train. I immediately requested that the Councilmember attend and talk with our entire Coalition as soon as possible to confirm with all of us that these are his goals too and to allow everyone concerned to be a part of the solution.

We are working with City staff as to what the necessary next action items will include. Please be ready to participate as you have already been doing in support of the Coalition’s position all these years. For our community, for the future of our children and for our own history and common heritage that is the Southwest Museum, I thank you for being devoted to community service.

Nicole Possert, Chair

Griffith Park Master Plan Draft in Danger

According to a letter sent to Master Plan Working Group (GPMPWG) members, the new draft Griffith Park Master Plan is being downgraded to a simple "vision" for the park. Insiders know that this is not a move by the Department of Recreation and Parks (DRP), but is clearly at the behest of Councilman Tom LaBonge. The GPMPWG is expected to review the major edits by the department and LaBonge, and provide a final edit in just two weeks.

Since the document is a vision of a broad based group of community members and developed through a lengthy and very public process, the document certainly qualifies as a true Master Plan. It's a good guess that the attack on the process is being driven by the councilmembersince the document does not represent the vision of Tom LaBonge and his developer friends. LaBonge tried to force destination restaurants, pleasure piers, and cable cars into the previous version of the Master Plan. LaBonge's version was resoundingly hated and panned by the public at large.

Here we go again.

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New FDA Policy Endangers Respiratory Patients

"...Your inhaler may be changing."

This is the quasi-advertising slug that has been making the medical community rounds for the past year or so. If you’re one of the 10 million Americans living with asthma, you may have seen it. But what you probably don’t know is that this change could actually kill you.


Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration made the first major alteration in decades to all aerosol respiratory illness medications in this country by replacing the standard CFC aerosol propellants with a new propellant formulation known as “HFA". The change was made across the board -- CFCs were replaced by HFA without any alternative.

So what's wrong with switching CFCs to HFA? According to the growing preponderance of anecdotal evidence at The National Campaign to Save CFC Inhalers, HFA is making far too many people very, very ill. Reported problems with HFA inhalers run the gamut from ‘my medication doesn’t seem to be working as well’, to causing major upper respiratory and even system-wide infections requiring hospitalization and months of recuperation.


Rescued by an Inhaler

It goes without saying that the FDA is supposed to be tasked with ensuring the safety of all prescription medications. In the United States alone, more than 35 million chronic respiratory patients depend on FDA-approved prescription inhaled medications to achieve a reasonable quality of life. Diseases that make up the chronic respiratory category include asthma as well as COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), emphysema, tuberculosis, cystic fibrosis, lung cancer, pneumonia, and aspergillosis.

For the majority of the above patients, albuterol (also called salbutamol) has been the drug-of-choice in an emergency situation for decades. Most patients carry albuterol “rescue inhalers” with them at all times. Rescue inhalers mean a world of difference in a person’s day-to-day quality of life. Almost all respiratory patients will unfortunately have an emergency of the type rescue inhalers are designed to address. For some reason or another, their illness suddenly becomes extremely acute and immediate medication intervention is required no matter where the patient is at the time. With a simple rescue inhaler on hand that works, the acute condition of the moment is usually resolved before major medical care is required. Without a rescue inhaler that works as advertised at that moment, hospitalization and even death is a possibility.

Albuterol CFC rescue inhalers have provided this service consistently, and patients have been able to trust this medication to work for decades. The wholesale change to HFA by the FDA leads one believe that the FDA has rigorously determined that the new inhalers will do likewise. But in practice, are HFA rescue inhalers working when a patient really needs them -- in a major breathing emergency? The growing evidence is "no", but pinning down just how well HFA does perform has been difficult due to the broad range of patient complaints.

It isn't surprising there are so many nebulous complaints regarding the effectiveness of HFA inhalers. It’s hard to determine if someone is having adverse reactions to HFA because at the same time one is breathing in the propellant that might be an irritant, one is also breathing in the medication that counteracts the symptoms of the irritation. Just how well the medication masks an irritating effect from the propellant can vary wildly from person to person, and from moment to moment. If a person is pretty healthy, they might not notice the irritant much. However, if someone’s immune system gets run down by an illness or stress, normal "irritants" tend to get more irritating at an almost exponential rate.

Unless cause and effect is very clear, after using an HFA inhaler the patient doesn’t know what factors have combined in what amount to make them breathe as well as they are at that moment. Many patients’ complaints with HFA stem from a simple comparison of their old CFC inhalers with the new ones. Some complaints arise when a patient actually goes into anaphylaxis due to using an HFA inhaler. Often their life was saved by an old CFC inhaler that happened to be nearby.

There is very little hard scientific data on HFAs vs. CFCs in actual respiratory patients because the majority of the published clinical data was done on healthy people -- people for whom lung irritation is not an issue. However, in a UK field study done at the time albuterol/salbutamol HFA inhalers were released in the United Kingdom, MDs monitoring their use by actual respiratory patients found that four times the number of patients who had trouble tolerating CFC inhalers were made ill by HFA. (CFC intolerance is less than 1% of the patient population.) That makes at least one fact-based HFA intolerance estimate around 4%, or 1.4 million Americans. This number is probably low since understanding of just what problems are being caused by HFA verses normal external influences weren’t even under consideration at the time.

Midway through this year, most major pharmacies and mail order services have already switched to the FDA-approved HFA replacements exclusively, leaving patients who are having trouble with HFA inhalers to scramble for the remaining CFC inhalers on the market. According to FDA mandate, all CFC inhaler production must cease on December 31st, 2008 leaving HFA-sensitive patients without any legal options.


The War Over CFC Replacement

Albuterol inhalers have been available as generics in the in the US for decades. This medication alone was a $400 million dollar annual business even then. The CFC phase-out was an obvious opportunity for drug companies to return the medication's new formulation to a patented status. Which ever company(ies) got their hand of the FDA's approved replacement stood to find themselves with a huge cash cow in the making.

The political struggle over which large US pharmaceutical company would get the lucrative monopoly on CFC replacements started more than a decade ago. There are two types of inhaler technology currently in use worldwide: ‘metered dose inhalers’ [MDIs] that require a propellant, and ‘dry powder inhalers’ [DPIs] that use turbulent air flow caused by the patient breathing in to disperse the medication – this means no propellants are needed. Glaxo Smith-Kline was fast off the mark, introducing an albuterol DPI under the brand name Ventolin Rotacaps in 1989. Clinical studies found Ventolin Rotacaps as efficacious as their CFC counterparts.

So what happened to Glaxo’s Rotacaps system? It lost out in the ensuing political dog fight and Glaxo discontinued production everywhere in 2003. When the fur finished flying, the FDA approved four “branded” albuterol MDIs only. Schering-Plough has been the biggest winner so far. Their Proventil HFA has absolutely dominated rescue inhaler sales in the United States this year. Today, albuterol has not only been moved from generic back to proprietary and the financial cost to patients tripled or quadrupled, but there will be no legal alternatives to HFA in the United States come January 1, 2009.


HFAs vs. CFCs in the Environment

It's been fairly universal knowledge that chlorofluorocarbons are "bad" for decades, but the reasons why are a complex mix of chemistry and physics. There are a number of published theories involving the exact photochemical processes by which CFCs produce damage to the protective, UV-blocking ozone [O3] layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. It's safe to say that today in 2008, most of the scientific community believes that CFCs are still a major contributor to the infamous O3 “hole”. The public education campaign against CFCs dates back to 1987, when the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was enacted. At that time, worldwide CFC emissions were on the order of 1.2 million tons per year. However, the medical use of CFCs has been almost negligible since it began to be measured. At peak use, CFC inhalers have accounted for a maximum of just 0.83 % of the 1987 total. In the United States, CFC inhalers account for less than 0.3 % annually.


It’s political and career suicide to fight the “all CFCs bad” paradigm. Yet, there are scientists and learned folks out there who have quietly run their numerical models with the result that CFC MDI use has no appreciable degrading effect on the ozone layer. Getting them to speak up has been no easy matter.

When the Clean Air Act was updated in 1991 to address the Montreal Protocol, chlorofluorocarbons in aerosols were slated to be phased out world-wide by 2010, including when being used in medical necessities. The assumption was that technology would provide a new propellant as good as or better than CFCs before the drop-dead date was reached. It’s now 2008, and the new technology lung patients are forced to accept is HFA or the highway – there are no alternatives.

Making matters worse, ethanol -- a toxic, Class 3 residual solvent produced from corn and known to cause the actual constriction of airways in lung patients -- is added to three of the four most common HFA rescue inhalers in amounts varying from 10%-14% by weight. Yet the FDA has issued assurances that the ethanol in HFA inhalers is present in amounts too small to cause any danger. So just how much is too small? Ask the person who nearly dies from anaphylaxis because the snack they just ate doesn’t contain peanuts but may contain ingredients from a plant that processes peanuts.

And what about DPIs? With no propellants needed, it might seem like DPIs are the best solution to the problem of getting respiratory patients their medication. Unfortunately, there are millions of Americans whose normal day-to-day lung function is not strong enough to breathe deep enough to make a DPI effective for them. MDIs, and therefore propellants, are necessary.


Fighting the Government to Breathe in 2009

When all is said and done, the bottom line is that until the FDA acknowledges the HFA debacle and approves another form of albuterol MDI, the average respiratory patient cannot rely on HFA products for a rescue inhaler. To be truly safe, patients should always carry a nebulizer -- a mechanical air pump that disperses liquids for aspiration -- with liquid albuterol or epinephrine ampules for emergencies. Comparatively, nebulizers are big, bulky, and inconvenient.... and if toting a nebulizer around everywhere won't be making a serious a dent in your quality of life, who knows what does.

Meanwhile, albuterol DPI rescue inhalers are available by other manufacturers throughout the rest of the civilized world except North America for literally pennies on the dollar that Schering Plough is making with Proventil HFA.

Respiratory patients who want to fight back find themselves facing the some of the biggest, ugliest and nastiest bureaucracies, monopolies and politicos out there: the FDA, the EPA, the US pharmaceutical money-making monster, and even the Corn lobby-from-hell. The battle may look impossible, but this is about the quality of life, and possibly even death for 35 million Americans.

If you or someone you know wants to fight back, The National Campaign to Save CFC Inhalers is a great place to start.


Just Transition ‘Em

Finally, according to this slick and likely expensive Patient HFA Transition Guide for MDs, there are just four simple steps to transitioning all respiratory patients to HFA inhalers:

1. IDENTIFY patients that currently use CFC bronchodilators.
2. INITIATE discussion and inform patients of their HFA treatment options.
3. INSTRUCT patients about new use and care directions.
4. TRANSITION your patients.

Amazingly simple, isn't it?

Posted by PetraFried in the City 6/20/2008 09:36:00 AM