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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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Terry Robinson (arm extended), chair of the Palms Neighborhood Council's Nominations and Elections Committee, helps line up members of her committee for a photo at the end of a long voting day in Palms Elementary School. Others are, left to right, Jerry Kvasnicka of the League of Women Voters, the independent election administrator; Delta Alonso and her brother, Eloy (Rod) Rodriguez; Joe Zimring, Cathy Milliman, Pauline Stout, Stephanie Reavesdail and Susan Blanchard.
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157 votes are cast in the historic ballot; one residential seat is unfilled
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The installation of members in the new Palms Neighborhood Assembly will be Tuesday, June 21. The regular meeting of the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch will be at 6:30 p.m., followed by the installation at 7 p.m.
For later information, go to the official Palms Neighborhood Council Web site, here.
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Len Nguyen, the man whose vision some three years ago sparked the formation of the Palms Neighborhood Council, has been elected the organization's first president.
He had been serving as chair of the Organizing Committee.
He received 121 votes in the Sunday, May 22, 2005, election, to 20 votes for Geary John Carrol Sheridan, a newcomer to the Council's activities.
Other results for the areawide offices include Todd W. Robinson, vice president, with 82 votes against Cliff Cheng's 35 votes. Robinson is also a newcomer; Cheng, who ran as a write-in, has been active with the Council.
George Garrigues, who ran unopposed for secretary, garnered 123 votes, and Asad Yavari, also unopposed, received 124 votes. Both are longtime Council activists.
Two write-in candidates went head-to-head in the race for organization/nonprofit Assembly member. Alejandro (Alex) Soschin of LA Scores, who was active in the Organizing Committee, won by a vote of 49 to 21 for Saman Namizikhah of the Iman Center.
There were 157 stakeholders who cast ballots.
Sixty-five vote-by-mail ballots were mailed to voters, and 27 of them were returned, either by mail or at the May 22 polls. Palms has a population of about 30,000.
In the only use of the "instant runoff" concept, Mario Bruhwiler was declared the winner in Motor residential district C by a vote of 16 votes to Steven D. Klein's 14, once the two lowest candidates were eliminated and their votes distributed to the two finalists.
Click the underlined names to jump to their post-election statements. |
The first-round votes went to Bruhwiler, 13; Klein, 12; Adrian Hernandez Garcia, 8; and Lamar Glover, 0.
Bruhwiler is a veteran in the Palms Council, while the others were newcomers.
Willie Bell won the Assembly seat in Palms West residential area A, by 13 votes over Bea Steelman's 6. Both have been active in the Council's activities.
Eleven people voted in Overland residential area B for Palms activist Billie Silvey, who was unopposed.
In Exposition residential area E Ingeborg Prochazka, a veteran in the Palms Council, received 11 votes over write-in candidate David E. Nico, a newcomer with 7 votes.
Despite a last-minute door-to-door distribution by hand of some 500 fliers in Studio residential area D, there were no candidates and the vacant seat will have to be filled by Nguyen after a search. Some of the Studio area is served by the Culver City Post Office (90232), where neither of the two Palms Neighborhood Council mailers were placed in the mail.
Three Assembly seats representing business owners and employees were filled by minuscule turnouts.
Last-minute write-in candidate John Riordan, owner of a plumbing business, received only one vote in the Pacific Electric historic business area 1, and realtor Lori Donahoo was elected in her Charnock Ranch historic business area 2 by two votes. Both have been active in the Palms Council or the Neighborhood Watch.
Danny Monempour, an apartment manager, won in the Palms Depot historic business area 3 by a vote of 13-2 over Neil James Anderberg. Both are newcomers.
There are now 12 elected members for the 13-member Representative Assembly, which must approve any nomination by President-Elect Len Nguyen to fill the vacancy.
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VOTE BY MAIL: Sixty-five applications for vote-by-mail ballots were sent out by Independent Election Administrator Jerry Kvasnicka, and 22 of those ballots were actually cast. Some were returned by post and some were brought to the polling place on May 22, Kvasnicka said. Seven vote-by-mail ballots were received on Monday, May 23, after the deadline.
LOW TURNOUT: Despite the fact that "the election committee, volunteers and candidates 'walked the neighborhood' with flyers on several weekends prior to the election," the "voter turnout was low," Kvasnicka said in his official report. "It is recommended that the PNC continue to experiment with ways to involve stakeholders."
WELCOME DONATION: Postal Instant Press (P.I.P.) at the corner of Venice Blvd. and Bagley Avenue donated printing for some of the publicity fliers distributed in the community by Palms activists, Nominations and Election Committee Chair Terry Robinson said.
WIDE REACH FOR STAKEHOLDERS: Ninety-nine of the 157 voters cast ballots for residential or business representatives. Fifty-eight did not; they were either ineligible to vote by district or decided not to.
Palms stakeholders include people who are connected to the area by membership or affiliation with organizations serving Palms, like the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council or the Iman Center. They can vote for areawide posts but not for geographic or business representatives.
AGE LIMIT: Although candidates had to be aged at least 18 to run for a seat, voters could be as young as 16. This provision was made part of the bylaws to encourage participation by younger people. |
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WELL, WAS IT WORTH THE PRICE OF ADMISSION?
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Two fund-raisers were held the weekend of June 4-5, one of them at Palms's Media Park, where the price of admission was $150 or $75. The latter featured food from some of L.A.'s leading restaurants, and a silent auction, above. Net proceeds, after overhead, went to the hungry and the homeless. (More on the Opinion page, here.)
St. Augustine's School sponsored a boisterous, joyful carnival on its campus south of Venice Blvd., left, where the admission was $1. Proceeds went to the support of the school.
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NEIGHBORS ARE FIGHTING FOR THIS LITTLE BIT OF GREEN SPACE ON CARDIFF AVE.
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The owner of a single-family house at 3730 Cardiff (east side) has applied to build a permitted apartment structure in an R-3 zone, but he wants a variance to allow him to construct it just 15 feet from the sidewalk. Dave Nico, who lives in a house next door, says a building-line variance would ruin the view of the street since most of the properties on that block are set back considerably further. A variance would allow the applicant to build four apartment units rather than three. The case number is APCW 2004-2509-BL. (Satellite photo from Google, here.)
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IMPROVEMENTS PLANNED AT OVERLAND AVE. AUTO-REPAIR GARAGE
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After 34 years in business, Hugh Piper is on the path to getting a conditional-use permit that would allow him to build a nicer office for his auto-body repair lot on the northeast corner of Tabor and Overland. He also plans to enclose the repair bays in the rear.
The property is zoned for C2-1 commercial. John Tennant Construction submitted the application. The case, numbered ZA 2005-1357, was considered by a city examiner on Thursday, May 26. Go to the city's Web site, here, for more information and a map.
Piper will have to pay $5,000 toward cleaning up the gasoline damage to the soil, with the rest coming from Federal Superfund money allocated by the state of California.
When Overland Avenue was enlarged several years ago, Piper discovered 11 underground fuel tanks — some of them dating back to the early 1930s, when the corner was occupied by a Rocket gasoline station.
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MARY HARPER
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Year-end report on support for Palms Middle School
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Dear Parents
Thank you for all of your support and participation this year. Although it has been a challenging year for Friends of Palms, we have been able to improve communication with parents via e-mail and the newsletter and raise funds to support our school.
I am pleased to be passing on the FOP/PTSA President position to Lee Taylor and Patti Lawhon. If you have any questions or would like to participate in FOP events, you can contact Lee or Patti.
Our goals for next year are:
• To continue to improve communication between parents, teachers and administrators.
• To raise funds to support enrichment programs and technology upgrades. Again, thank you for your support.
We made lots of headway at the last meeting of the year. We passed motions to revise our board to improve communication between parents, teachers and administration. We also added some fundraising events and made changes to the budget for next year.
The following board positions were added to our roster:
• VP Fundraising
-Pledge-a-thon
-Newsletter Sponsors/Ad Sales
-Pizza/Bake Sales
• VP Communications/PR
-School Information Signage
-E-mail List Coordinator
-Newsletter Reporting Support
-6th Grade Representative
-7th Grade Representative
-8th Grade Representative
• VP Programs/School Support
-Holiday Teachers Pot Luck
-Teacher Welcome Back Breakfast
We also added the following fund-raising events:
• Phone-a-thon Pledge Drive
• Newsletter Sponsors/Ad Sales
• Pizza/Bake Sales at Back-to-School Night and Open House
• Powerbrokers Real Estate Brokers Program
The following changes were made to our expenses:
• Bottled Water for the teachers and staff: This expense was cut in half by using a more cost-effective water company. The administration indicated that the teacher would rather have water supplied than classroom supplies. Any overage on this will come directly from the Classroom Supply Fund expense.
• School Information Signs: We are hoping to purchase large marquees for the front and back of the school to better inform parents of events and changes to schedule. We need a parent to investigate our options.
• Teacher Welcome Back Breakfast: We will welcome back teachers at the first staff meeting of the year in August with a breakfast.
• Work Study (TA’s): We are hoping that this expense can be reduced by using aides from a different work/study program.
• School Technology Support: We have increased the funds for this area because major and ongoing upgrades to our computer network are necessary. This directly affects the long term goal of having parents, teachers and administrators communicate via the internet.
Also discussed:
• 6th Grade Welcome Dinner: The price per ticket could increase to $10.00 per person. Final determination will be made by the chair of this event.
• LA SCORES After School Program: We will be welcoming LA SCORES to the school next year. HOORAY!
• Newsletter Reporting: It was suggested to the administration that teachers participate in reports to the newsletter. We are hoping to include articles from both teachers and students in the newsletter next year.
• The Council Program: Carol Kurland joined our meeting as Council liaison. The Council program continues to educate our children in communication, problem-solving and fellowship. If you would like more information about the program or would like to participate as a community facilitator, please contact Joe Provisor or Carol Kurland through the school (310-837-5236).
• Pizza/Bake Sales (Back-to-School Night, Open House): It was suggested that the administration include students in these events because of the childcare burden on parents. Administration is concerned about inappropriate and unsafe behavior of unsupervised children that has been experienced in the past. Parents would be required to supervise their children as no extra supervision would be available.
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Mary Harper is the outgoing president of FOP/PTSA (Friends of Palms/Parent-Teacher-Student Assn.)
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