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IN THIS SITE
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Some links on these archived pages are not operative.
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This NONCOMMERCIAL site is a harmless hobby of George Garrigues, who has lived in the Westside Village district of Palms for 12 years. These pages have no connection with any organization.
Send him e-mail with corrections and comments.
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PALMS BECOMES A CERTIFIED NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL
 The Los Angeles Board of Neighborhood Commissioners granted certification of the Palms Neighborhood Council at a meeting in Palms on Tuesday, Dec. 14.
The board is composed of seven members from across the city appointed by Mayor Hahn. Four of them were present and all voted for Palms.
A crowd of Palms and Westside Village people turned out for the event at the Iman Center on Motor Avenue. Westside Village is not included in the certified area.
Planning for neighborhood elections will begin soon. Westside Village residents who are active in Palms organizations will be eligible to vote and to run for some offices.
The application was the 100th to be filed since the neighborhood council movement was begun in 1999 with the adoption of a new Los Angeles City Charter.
The hearing on the application was preceded by a "public comment" section in which three members of the Westside Village Civic Assn., a homeowners' group, spoke in favor of the Village retaining its ties with the Mar Vista Community Council. One of them was Ken Alpern, who is also a director of the Mar Vista council.
Several directors of the Mar Vista group were in attendance. They delayed their board meeting in Mar Vista so they could attend. Two of them, Bill Scheding and Maritza Przekop, also spoke in favor of retaining Westside Village.
During the evening meeting, five homeowners of Westside Village spoke in favor of linking up with Palms.
But Commissioner Bill Christopher of Hollywood made it clear that nothing of the sort was going to happen unless "all parties" — including Mar Vista and Palms — agreed to a boundary shift.
Palms was founded in 1886. It is now the city's 85th certified community council.
(For more information and photos, click here.)
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SIGNATURES FOR A JOINT COUNCIL NOW TOTAL 200 NAMES
The last of petitions bearing the names of 200 people favoring the establishment of a a Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council were presented to the city's Board of Neighborhood Commissioners on Tuesday, Dec. 7.
George Garrigues, founder of an ad hoc organization called Stakeholders for a United Palms: Emergency Response (S-U-P-E-R) handed in the petitions at a board meeting at Daniel Webster Middle School in North Westdale. He made the following statement:
Sixty-three years ago, December 7, 1941, our country was attacked. Our right to petition our government for the redress of our grievances was theatened.
Today we and the descendants of those who attacked us live peacefully together on opposite shores of the Pacific Ocean, friends and not enemies, working together for our common goals.
Today I bring you what I hope will be the last of our petitions to redress a wrong that befell our little community of Westside Village on August 13, 2002.
That was the date you commissioners approved the Mar Vista Community Council, on the good-faith belief that you were certifying a “neighborhood” whose residents would applaud your action.
You were led astray.
Some call our community Westside Village, and others call it Northwest Palms, but one thing nobody has EVER called it before is “Mar Vista.” We want to join Palms and Westside Village together into a joint neighborhood council.
Among our two hundred petitioners you will find the names of 119 single-family residents (some of them renters), 58 apartment dwellers, and eighteen businesspeople or employees.
Commissioners, next week you will be asked to certify a Palms Neighborhood Council — without including Northwest Palms.
Palms is the first “suburb” of Los Angeles. It was founded in 1886.
When you certify the Palms council next week, Palms will have a new motto: “Born in 1886; Reborn in 2004.”
We in Westside Village want to be a part of that rebirth.
People like Ana Chalk, a condominium owner on Sepulveda; Rosalie M. Chung, who runs a little store on Palms Blvd.; Mike Hakim, an immigrant who installs carpet from his place on Overland, and his son, Bob, who is just starting his law practice from a little office attached to his dad’s business. People like Richard Markoe and Alice Pine, husband and wife, whose poor health has brought them — on welfare — to the Golden Manor retirement home on Overland.
There’s Eugene Lee and Lisa Lee and Min Lee, who live in two nearby houses on Midvale, and Jijin Li, who is in a house on Veteran.
There’s gruff old Walter W. Alschuler, who wrote on his petition: “It’s about time!”
On this Pearl Harbor Day anniversary, we ask you not just to RECEIVE our petition for a redress of our grievance, but to also DO something about it:
We are ready to assist you and your staff in your important work and to bring about a treaty of peace and separation between us and Mar Vista.
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Jane Wolff and the Delta Primer
A unique look at the California Delta Region.
Why is this patch of greenery fenced off? You will have to go to the Center for Land Use Interpretation on Venice Blvd. to find out.
For more information, click here.
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SANTA VISITS PALMS IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE SLEIGH
 On Friday, Dec. 16, the LAPD (led by Officer Anthony Vasquez) made a special delivery to Palms Elementary and more than 60 boys and girls of LA SCORES and Youth Services.
Around 4:30 p.m., a police cruiser towing a sleigh rolled up to the back gate of the schoolyard filled with gifts, candy, and of course Santa Claus!
The students on the playground immediately flocked to the sleigh and to the officers who had come by on the last day of school to spread some incredible holiday cheer!
In the waning hours of the day, kids made their last requests to Santa, nursed candy canes and chatted with the fine members of their local police force. As the sky grew dark, the warning lights illuminated, and Santa got his police escort back to the North Pole to the sound of children cheering as he left.
This event marked another successful collaboration between the LAPD and LA SCORES. Last year, one group of girls wrote police stories and poems, and Officer Vasquez and Officer Llanes visited the classroom to meet the students and answer questions. The officers were then presented with the poems and stories that they helped inspire.
With so many officers taking time out for the children in the community, Palms is very fortunate to have law-enforcement officers who care so deeply about the people they serve.
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National-Sepulveda bell-ringer gets the full L.A. Times treatment
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 Did you stiff the Salvation Army bell-ringer as you hurried out of Sav-on Drugs at Sepulveda and National during this holiday season?
If so, bell-ringer Terri Brown had nothing but good thoughts for you anyway, according to Steven Barrie-Anthony, a Los Angeles Times reporter who spent a few hours with Terri at her post in front of Sav-on in Northwest Palms (Westside Village).
Terri was the subject of the lead Calendar article on Tuesday, December 21
You sped by her collection kettle without so much as a glance?
"That's OK," The Times's Barrie-Anthony wrote. "Brown keeps smiling; she can't afford to look down on anyone."
She tells herself: "Remember where you're coming from. Remember when you were 17 and your baby girl died and the pain was like a heart attack and you had to run away to keep on standing. Remember being raped, each of four times. Remember smoking crack on Los Angeles' skid row. Remember sleeping with the rats."
The Times reporter continued: "The kettle and the bell saved her, the kettle and the bell and Jesus — when Brown and [her husband] Cedric and their six kids found themselves homeless in Vegas three years ago, the Salvation Army sheltered and fed them, and Brown tossed the crack pipe for good. . . ."
But — was this man you?
"Sure, there are people like the fiftysomething man wearing an American flag cap who flies out of Sav-on at 12:42 and insists to the world that Brown wants to take and take and take everybody's last hard-earned cent."
Brown earns minimum wage.
The locked kettle at the end of the day holds $150.85.
You can read the whole story on the Los Angeles Times site, here.
Times photo by Lawrence K. Ho
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, previously published material on this page is distributed without profit or payment to those who may have an interest in receiving the information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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