Advertising Graffiti Coming to Ocean Front Walk?

By Dennis Hathaway

Ocean Front Walk is known as The Boardwalk, although it’s all concrete—the only boards in sight belong to distant surfers waiting to catch a wave. That view to the west is free of the intense commercialism of the inland side of the the Boardwalk, with its crowded T-shirt and souvenir shops, but strollers gazing beachward may soon be greeted by a new sight—advertising signs on light poles, benches, trash cans, and restroom walls and doors.

At yesterday’s meeting of the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents the Venice area, endorsed the kind of plan put forward last year by the non-profit L.A. Parks Foundation to raise money for city parks maintenance and operations by selling space to what was termed “corporate sponsors.” The Venice Beach part of the plan called for 200 signs on an 8-block stretch of the Boardwalk, a total sign area of almost 10,000 square feet, or the equivalent of 15 full-size billboards.

Among other heavily-used parks and recreation facilities slated for advertising were Griffith Park, Pan Pacific Park, and the Sepulveda Dam Recreation area. Signs were to be placed on playground fences, shelter roofs, the bottoms of swimming pools, along trails, and on walls of child care centers. The plans surfaced after the Recreation and Parks Commission voted last October to allow dozens of images from a Warner Bros. “Yogi Bear” movie to be placed in three city parks for a month in advance of the movie’s premier. That plan, which was to net the city just over $46,000, was abandoned after public outcry from communities in which the parks were located.

After listening to commission president Barry Sanders complain that the City Attorney’s office was unfairly jeopardizing so-called “public/private partnerships” by insisting the park advertising scheme would violate the city’s sign ordinance, committee members Rosendahl, Bernard Parks, and Greig Smith expressed support for selling advertising in the parks as a way of raising badly-needed funds for operations. Parks questioned whether the City Attorney’s advice “is more of an opinion as opposed to a legal basis” and Sanders said the commission should develop and administer its own sign regulations, as opposed to being governed by the citywide sign code that prohibits any new off-site advertising.

Sanders argued, as he has on several on several public occasions, that signage such as the Yogi Bear images that were to be hung from playground fences, attached to light standards, and wrapped over picnic tables, did not constitute advertising even though the images were identical to ones on billboards and other ads for the soon-to-open movie because they didn’t contain any information about movie times or locations. Committee member Paul Koretz strongly disputed this characterization, although he said he supported the concept of public/private partnerships to raise revenue.

Big Changes on Ocean Front Walk

A new ordinance for the west side of OFW is being worked up by the City, without participation by Venetians. The good news is that it will ban manufactured goods in favor of art and free speech.

Historic old building face destruction (see above).

A nearly-bankrupt L.A. wants to rake in big bucks by allowing advertisements (commercial graffiti) on nearly everything. Meanwhile, illegal advertisements continue to disfigure hotels and apartments.

See inside for details.

Letters

4 O’Clock in the Morning

Dear Beachhead,

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Roger Linnett, and The Beachhead, for your article “4 O’Clock in the Morning.” I wish I had written it myself. As you may or may not know I led an astronomy campout around the spring and fall equinoxes for over 25 years, usually in Joshua Tree National Park. The core group were old Beachhead staffers (Emily Winters, Olga Palo, Arnold Springer, Moe Stavnezer, et al). I have three telescopes, all somewhat the worse for wear, and still go out to view from time-to-time.

I should have written earlier and thanked you for your article on Henrietta Leavitt. I gave one of my granddaughters George Johnson’s biography of Leavitt, and have long been an admirer of hers and other women in astronomy.

Keep up the good work!

Chuck Bloomquist

 

VNC goes on a shopping spree

Not to be outdone by the Pentagon, the Venice Neighborhood Council at its May 24 meeting voted to spend money like it was going out of style. President Linda Lucks explained that the funds would have to be returned to the City if VNC didn’t spend them (where they might have helped reduce the city’s budget-BH).

Here’s some of the damage:

• $3000 for the 2011 Venice Community Barbecue; $1620 for rental of storage space;
• $325 for a booth at the Abbott Kinney Festival;
• $450 for a new canopy;
• $425 for meeting timer;
• $600 for table coverings for Board meetings;
• $400 for Board retreat.

Although the Board is without translating equipment, no one thought to put it on the shopping list.

The Board also doled out money to a number of worthy – and/or dubious – community causes:

• $1,900 – Masters In The Chapel: Concert Series;
• $1, 325 – Walgrove Elementary School: Cafeteria Area Beautification;
• $1, 900 - Venice Canals Foundation: Coastal Access Path;
• $1, 900 – Venice Historical Society: Discovering My Venice Workbook;
• $1, 700 – Venice Canals Assn: Re-Treading Canal Walk-Bridges;
• $1, 400  – E. Jaquchem/Venice Chamber of Comm: Carnevale;
• $1, 500 – Coeur d’Alene Elementary School: Local Wildlife Mural;
• $1, 500 – Beethoven Elementary School: Learning Garden;
• $1, 000 - Venice Vintage Motorcycle Club: Venice Vintage Motorcycle Rally;
• $1, 300 - Venice Japanese American Memorial Marker Comm: Memorial Marker at Lincoln & Venice;
• $500 – Venice Art Crawl: Neptune Festival;
• $275 – Milton Rosenberg: Venice Spring Fling

The Venice Japanese American Memorial Marker Committee had originally been allocated only $500 (half as much as the motorcycle club), but after an outcry from the audience was raised to $1300. They had asked for $2,000.

Little Church of Horrors

By Calvin Moss

The skate ramp has been torn down; the Peace with Justice Pantry and Venice Food not Bombs has been forced out. What exactly is happening over at the Venice United Methodist Church? Has Pastor Rev. A. Okechukwu Ogbonnaya, a Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian, brought third world anti-gay bigotry and combined it with good old first world white racism?

Pastor Ogbonnaya travels as a preacher to Uganda and Nigeria – countries with extremely homophobic Christian movements in favor of laws that criminalize Gay people. One of these laws in Uganda was the Gay Kill Bill, which was strongly condemned by the United States government. Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians in the United States fund and lobby in favor of this incredible evil and these archaic laws against Gays.

The Church’s present and former trustees are known to have antigay fits and make sick racist comments. One trustee seems to delight in making sick racist comments about African-Americans. Once during a food give away in the Church parking lot he said, “ Someone is going to whack that Sambo” referring to President Obama. Another racist comment made by the same trustee in the church office about the AIDS epidemic that has devastated communities in Africa is: “All those bunnies jumping around in Africa.” Carol Green, the resident churchmarm, chuckled “no one pays any attention to him,” but someone inside the Venice United Methodist Church obviously did.

Cedrick Bridgeforth, the Los Angeles Area District Superintendent of the United Methodist Church, appears to be empowering the Pastor and the trustees to wreck the progressive faction within the church, despite letters and complaints from liberals in the community.

Another former head trustee was seen shaking hands with and befriending a young woman who had just committed a felony hate crime on the former pastor. Rev. Tom Ziegart had his car covered with swastikas and was threatened by this young woman and members of a white youth gang.  Even the present Church trustee chair is believed by some to have extreme antigay opinions and allegedly resorts often to openly lying about recent evictions.

Pastor Ogbonnaya is quoted in the press saying that the church could not afford the $1000/month insurance for the ramp when it was $1,100 a year. He said that there was a drug problem at the ramp, but the problem kids were kids from the neighborhood (not the skater kids) that the church intentionally looked the other way about. Now Pastor Ogbonnaya is rumored as saying the skate ramp was removed because of sexual molestation! This Pastor is known by some to make up wild stories like “someone just flashed a gun at me” while the people standing next to him saw nothing.

One other side to this sad story is when Pastor Ogbonnaya met with local L.A.P.D. Captain Peters and other intolerant Evangelical Ministries in Venice. What was said at these meetings is unknown, but one can only think that multiple evictions could be the bitter fruit of this, along with Councilperson Bill Rosendahl and the City’s support of the anti-homeless, hateful gentrification movement in Venice. Are the recent events at this Church an indication of the future of Venice? A right wing, kid hating, poor hating, gay hating intolerant Venice?

A positive solution to the terrible intolerant mess at the Venice United Methodist Church – mainly caused by District Superintendent Cedrick Bridgeforth and the Right Wing Church Members – is to close down that church, donate the Church Hall and parking lot to a local non-profit for conversion into housing for the poor with a ground floor storefront. The Church building, which is separate from the hall, could be turned into a multi-denominational church and community meeting hall used to teach peace with justice and tolerance  – the true soul of Venice.

Community Pressure to Save Vera Davis Center Services Intensifies

By Roger Linnett

The reassignment of the Vera Davis Center to the auspices of the L.A. Cultural Affairs Department is proceeding apace despite the hue and cry of Venice residents that both use and support its many charitable services.

However, the city miraculously found $60,000 to pay for keeping the Center open during the coming year, which activists attributed to the continuing pressure, particularly from Oakwood residents.

As originally reported in the Beachhead in April, the property is to be taken over by the Cultural Affairs Department, which may evict the service providers that presently operate from the center. The manner in which the transfer from the Community Development Department(CDD), to Cultural Affairs was handled has led to the appearance of another governmental end run. Venetians were advised of the impending transfer only after the city had apparently already made the decision and, as too often in the past, the residents of Venice had no input in the matter.

Five of the six organizations working from the center have banded together as a the “Friends of Vera Davis Center” Collaborative: the Latino Resource Organization, Venice 2000, Westside Bulldogs, Tech Team Computer Learning Center and the Mildred Cursh Foundation. They are working to stop the Community Development Department from turning over the historic building to the Cultural Affairs people on June 30 and removing much needed services from the building.

The center accommodates Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, distributes free groceries to the needy twice a month and assists area residents with Food Stamp applications. These services and all the good done by the aforementioned groups will be terminated, and efforts to find alternative sites have yet to provide new quarters for these much needed and appreciated community services.

“As far as the city is concerned, it’s a done deal,” said VNC’s Ivonne Guzman in a recent telephone interview. Guzman, who has been working with the collaborative, says that  stopping the transfer is still a possibility.

According to an email from L.A. City Engineer Neil Drucker, “…we anticipate going to Council for final approval of the next year’s (FY2011/12) 5-year plan in mid-June. The proposed plan already includes the following funding recommendations for Oakwood Junior Arts Center:   FY2012/13 – $100,000,  FY 2013/14 – $ 400,000.”

He went on to write that pending Council approval, pre-design activities would begin July 2012; and that, “per the City Attorney opinion, this facility can ONLY [his emphasis] be used as an arts center once the Prop K funds are spent on it, any other such use (such as social services) can only be minimal and ancillary to the use as a Youth Art Center,” according to Drucker.

The line item specifying the Vera Davis Center (formerly the Venice Branch Library) from 1998’s Proposition K – L.A. for Kids reads as follows: “Oakwood Junior Arts Center  CD11 – Refurbish, retrofit and convert the Venice Library into a Junior Arts Center,” $500,000.

But when was the Vera Davis Center ever named “Oakwood Junior Arts Center?” And if these plans really did exist for the last 13 years, why didn’t anyone in Venice know about it?

Venetians proudly named the center after a revered community activist, Vera Davis. It was converted into a community center after the library moved, to serve the poor and the needy in Venice.

To Guzman’s question about CDD requesting Prop K funds, Drucker made clear that, in the case that a project was found “infeasible” by the Council, “the funds would be transferred to the Prop K Competitive Grant Program, and would be made available for other projects.”

Asked if a non-profit could access Prop K funds, Drucker said yes, if the City Council authorized a Request For Proposal (RFP), but indicated that it would most likely have to  include plans for design and construction, and that the successful bidder might have to provide funds for any shortfalls, a very certain likelihood, in his opinion.

According to some observers, the Venice Neighborhood Council has waffled on taking a strong position in support of saving the services at the Vera Davis Center. Its failure to put an action item on its agenda raised debate at the last meeting on whether its subsequent vote in favor of the Center would be valid.

On June 16  at 6:30 pm there will be a Venice Town Council meeting at the Vera Davis Center to discuss saving the services at the Vera Davis Center.

Save The Venice Post Office

By Jim Smith

Why would anyone want to sell our 72-year-old historic post office? The officials at the US Postal Service claim that it is because the quasi-public organization is in deep financial trouble. The USPS currently is $8 billion in debt. It estimates the sale of the Venice Post Office could bring in $4.8 million, a drop in the debt bucket.

The USPS wants to close 2,000 of its more than 31,000 post offices, and cut mail delivery to five days per week. A major part of the problem, like many businesses, is employee health care. This could easily be eliminated by implementing single-payer health care, which is not employer based. In addition, the postal service says it over-contributed $75 billion to federal retirement. A reversal of this account could save the post office for the foreseeable future, while it comes up with a plan to deliver vital communication services such as first-class mail, and to reclaim more of the lucrative overnight mail and package express market, which critics say it gave away because of political pressure.

The National Association of Postmasters has filed a suit against the Postal Service’s new regulations, which include unilaterally consolidating Post Offices without community input, and denying many communities appellate review of Postal Service decisions to close their Post Offices.

The Postal Service, as it now exists, is Nixon’s parting shot to an ungrateful nation. It is neither public nor private, but incorporates the worst features of each. It has an impossible mission of delivering mail to a large part of the globe while making a profit. Its current deficit is made worse by a lasting economic depression that has cut its business significantly. In addition, it gave away most of its most lucrative business -– overnight mail – to corporations. The Postal Service doesn’t have a business plan to speak of and is taking its deficit out on the public by cutting services and selling off valuable property, like the Venice Post Office.

The Postal Service has ignored the shift to electronic mail (email) and the internet in general. In contrast, European postal services have embraced the internet and have offered services such as scanning your mail and sending it to your computer. Some countries’ postal services include providing sales within their buildings of special-issue and historic books and stamps for collectors, computer terminals, international telephone booths, even t-shirts and local curios.

A rational business plan for the postal service may include getting rid of many of its brick and mortar post offices, but it makes little sense to begin with the highly visible “legacy” post offices that are historic. The Venice Post Office is a symbol of our community. Its looming presence gives our community the status of a town, not just a wide place in the road between Santa Monica and the Marina. Further, the building was constructed and paid for many years ago. It, and the annex, do not cost the postal service mortgage payments or property taxes. Utilities and upkeep are the only expenses. From the looks of the post office grounds, very little is spent on upkeep.

Some board members of the Neighborhood Council have expressed the view that moving the post office across the Circle to the annex is acceptable. They have been claiming that the old building and its 1941 mural of Venice would be safe since it has historical status. USPS press spokesperson Richard J. Maher was quoted in an April Beachhead article as saying the building had historical protection. However, this turned out to be not true. Attorney Amanda Seward, who won historical protection for the Lincoln Place Apartments, researched the issue and discovered that the Venice Post Office has no historical status.

Bill Rosendahl’s Council office quickly drafted a motion which he put before the L.A. City Council on May 26 calling for a historical-cultural study of the building and to report to the City Council. The motion was jointly presented by Rosendahl and by Janice Hahn, who is the front-runner in the campaign for U.S. Congress. If elected, Hahn could likely stop the sale, as Jane Harman did when the Hermosa Beach Post Office was up for sale.

Meanwhile, several community meetings are being planned which could rally opposition to the sale. They include the Venice Town Council (7pm, June 16 at the Vera Davis Center), the Venice Neighborhood Council’s task force on the post office, and the VNC Board meeting.

The Venice Stakeholders Association has also weighed in on the side of keeping the Post Office in the old building. It proposes buying the current post office annex from the USPS instead, by means of a bond issue, and using the land for a community center and park.

While many Venetians like their letter carrier and the convenience of the current post office building, hard feelings against the post office as an organization have festered over the years. Moving the post office to the old Safeway grocery store would probably result in even more cut backs in service.

Among Venetians’ pet peeves are the following: 1) Cutting Venice in two by moving the southern part into the Marina del Rey’s zip code, 90292. Many newcomers do not know that the peninsula, Washington Blvd. and the Oxford Triangle are part of Venice, not the Marina. 2) Eliminating the separate slot at the Venice Post Office for a “Venice” post mark on a letter. 3) Removing the “take a number” machine from the lobby, which forces seniors and the disabled to wait in long lines for service. 4) Installing bullet proof shields at the windows, making Venice appear to be a war zone. After the shields were installed, the USPS built a new post office in neighboring Mar Vista without shields. 5) Reducing the number of letter carriers to the point that many residents don’t get their mail until after dark in the winter. 6) Allowing dirty sidewalks, stairways and ramps in front of the post office. 7) Making access to the post office more difficult by allowing a large FedEx box on the porch. (Note to Postmaster: This is your competition, if you didn’t know it.) 8) No bike racks in front of the post office 9) No involvement in the community. The postmaster has not met with community groups, has no office hours to hear complaints and complements, nor does he or his organization participate in community events.

Venice lost its last real Postmaster about 10 years ago, when the Long Beach district, which it was a part of, was dissolved and Venice came under the Los Angeles district, which only has one postmaster, in L.A. While various officials have been called Venice Postmasters since then, they are in reality “Officers in Charge” or OICs. They are neither appointed nor sworn in as postmasters. The days of a Postmaster being appointed by the President or his designee from a group of esteemed members of the community are long gone – to the detriment of the community and the Postal Service. The current Postmaster du jour is Bobbie Harris.

The Venice Post Office could make some more income if it would run, or contract for, a coffee and croissant bar in the far end of the lobby. The post office is one of the main places where Venetians meet their neighbors and friends. It would be nice, and good PR for the post office, to provide a place to sit and have coffee. The host could also sell stamps, eliminating one of the main reasons to stand in line.

————

How You Can Help Save the Post Office

1. Email Janice Hahn. She will likely win the runoff election, July 12, for Congress. Send an email to Elaine@JaniceHahn.com.
2. Ask her to take action now to ask the Postal Service to delay a decision on selling the historic Venice Post Office until she takes office. Ask her to continue Jane Harman’s ban on the sale of any post offices in CD-36.
3. Attend the Venice Town Council meeting, June 16, at the Vera Davis Center. The Post Office will be taken up around 8 pm.
4. Attend the Venice Neighborhood Council Board meeting, June 21, at the Westminster School Auditorium. The meeting starts at 7 pm.

Blue Bus Cuts Back Service in Venice

By Mary Getlein

Changes are coming to the Big Blue Bus service in Venice. They were approved by the Santa Monica City Council on May 12 and will go into effect August 28.

The biggest change that will affect Venice bus riders is the elimination of Line 2, which will end at Hill St. and Main St. in Santa Monica. Line 1 will take over the route of Line 2 and will go from UCLA to Walgrove Ave, which is the same route Line 2 had. On weekends, however, some trips will end on Lincoln Blvd. instead of Walgrove Ave. In addition, Sunday frequency will be increased from every 20 minutes to every 15 minutes between 11am and 8:30pm.

Whom does this change affect? The poor, disabled, young and old people of Venice. The number 2 line serviced a lot of people in Venice, going from UCLA to the Windward circle, to Abbot Kinney Blvd., California Ave. to Penmar and Walgrove Ave. It currently serves two sets of Venice children and young adults, the students of Mark Twain and Venice High. It’s a shame this service is being taken away from us, when so much has been taken away already.

The service changes are part of a three-year plan to allow for connections to the Expo Phase 1 light rail, which is scheduled to start in 2012.

The Big Blue Bus has planned similar changes for Lines 3, 5, 12, 14 and Super 12. If you want to register your complaints about these changes, you can contact them through www.BigBlue.com or you can call Customer Service at 310-451-5444.

“Four In the Morning” – The Video

Last month’s wonderful pre-dawn ballet of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter was at best difficult to see for most of us city dwellers.

If you would like to see a day by day simulation of the entire month of May’s celestial flash mob, google: “The four planet dance of 2011″ (with quotes), which will get you to a Sky & Telescope article detailing the event.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Click here to view a 700-kb movie and enjoy.

You will need to have Apple’s Quicktime to view the movie.

If you don’t have it, google: apple +quicktime to be directed to a download site. The program is free.

–Roger Linnett

How Venice Voted – And Didn’t Vote

By Jim Smith

Since February, when Jane Harman abruptly resigned her seat in Congress, 16 candidates have been working hard to discuss important national and international issues with the voters of the 36th District, including Venice. Unfortunately, Venetians and other voters failed miserably to hold up their end of citizenship. In fact, a lesser percentage of people in Venice – around 15 percent – voted than in the district as a whole (18 percent).

If Venice were its own Congressional District (not a bad idea), there would be a runoff between Debra Bowen with 35 percent and Marcy Winograd with nearly 23 percent of the vote. Janice Hahn and Craig Huey who finished first and secord district-wide (and coincidentally spent the most money) were third and forth choices in Venice. However, Huey, an evangelical Christian Republican right-winger who exclaimed that he feared for his life when he came to Venice for a candidates’ forum, attracted 303 votes in our community. When is the next Tea Party meeting?

Janice Hahn won the election early-on when she suckered Bowen into signing a pledge to defend Israel, right or wrong, thereby causing the entry of Marcy Winograd into the race. What possessed Bowen to sign a pledge that even casual campaign observers spotted as a devious ploy by Hahn? Without Winograd in the race, Bowen would probably have come out on top in the primary, and Hahn knew it. Bowen, who most of us regarded as a savvy politician, further compounded her woes, as reported in last month’s Beachhead, by refusing to sign the Veterans for Peace pledge to vote against funding the wars, thereby losing even more votes from her progressive base.

So now, Hahn has by default become the progressive candidate fighting off a tea party-birther-make medicare a voucher-cut social services to the bone-right winger-multi-millionaire, Craig Huey, who doesn’t even live in the district. Venetians will now have to forget Bowen and Winograd and fall in line with the mainstream Democrat come what may. Even so, Hahn is not likely to take the lead in Congress in ending the wars and bombings, cutting the military budget, creating a public jobs program to reduce California’s 23 percent real unemployment rate (shadowstats.com) or backing the country off of Harman’s vision of spying on everyone. She might not even save our post office. Our best hope now is that years of JH (Jane Harman) will be followed by the election of JH (Janice Hahn). If only the other 85 percent of you had voted.

The chart below shows how the candidates did in the various Venice hoods. It includes the top three Democrats, the top three Republicans and the top Libertarian, Peace and Freedom and Coffee Party candidates. Read it and weep.

The final results won’t be issued until June 17 and will include a few more votes across the board. Check lavote.net for updates.