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WATCH FOR THE RETURN OF THE PALMS–VILLAGE SUN, IN MAY 2008
Our diversity is our strength

The Palms–Village Sun
News, opinion and features about Historic Palms,
including Westside Village
www.PalmsVillageSun.info
This site is not affiliated with any group. Opinions are those of the writers.
No. 20, April 2006
THIS IS THE MAIN NEWS PAGE
IN THIS SITE
Some links on these archived pages are not operative.
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.
Assembly OKs plan
to adjust Palms's northeast border Story below
Venice Blvd. banners would celebrate 120th anniversary
of our community Story below
Bicycle Rodeo will return to Palms; parenting workshop is scheduled; condos are planned for mixed-use building on Venice Blvd. Story below
What a bargain! Palms museum director draws no pay
Story below

What an honor! Palms center director gets $25,000 prize
Story even farther below
120th Anniversary feature:
New photos of our old railroad station Opens in a new page
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Assembly seeks to adjust Palms's northeast border; Palms Park, library would be shared
A proposal to move the northeastern boundary of the Palms Neighborhood Council to the I-10 Rosa Parks Freeway was approved by the Council's Representative Assembly April 5.

The Palms proposal includes an "overlap" area for Palms Park, which would be shared by two neighborhood councils. The park includes our local library, a recreation center and a child-care center.

The boundary between Palms and the Westside Neighborhood Council at present runs along National Blvd. between Overland and the freeway overpass at Palms Blvd. near Exposition. That line follows the demarcation of two city planning districts which were established decades before the I-10 freeway was built.

The current boundary puts the National-Motor shopping center in two different neighborhood councils. It also puts the Palms boundary sign on Motor Ave. within the Westside district.

Palms officers have been in touch with Westside officials. Westside Secretary Terri Tippit said she is opposed to the idea of sharing Palms Park. She said a Westside committee will look into the idea of a boundary change.

The text of the approved motion is:
 
The President and Secretary are authorized to go ahead with a proposal to adjust the northern boundary along the I-10 Freeway, with an overlap area for Palms Park, and are further authorized to have the proper paperwork approved by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and the City Attorney's office before being brought back to the Representative Assembly for approval after the PNC election in May.

The city's rules for certification of neighborhood councils include the following:

Neighborhood Council boundaries may not overlap with other Neighborhood Council boundaries unless the area proposed for inclusion into each Neighborhood Council is designated for a public use, such as a park, school, library, police or fire station or major thoroughfare, or contains a landmark or facility with historical significance.

As you can see from the map, the Palms Council already has shared or overlapping boundaries with the Mar Vista Community Council that cover Palms Middle School and Charnock Road School.
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Venice Blvd. banners will celebrate
Palms's birthday
The Palms Representative Assembly has approved a proposal to place banners like these on Venice Blvd. in celebration of our community's 120th anniversary.

Although all of Venice Blvd. from downtown to the beach lies within the city of Los Angeles, the stretch closest to Culver City is often used by that community to publicize its events.

The Palms Representative Assembly approved the plan at its 7 p.m. meeting on April 5.

The community of Palms was officially founded on Dec. 26, 1886, when its subdivision map was filed with the county.
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Bicycle Rodeo will return to Palms; parenting workshop is scheduled; condos are planned for mixed-use building on Venice Blvd.
After a hiatus of one year, the Palms Bicycle Rodeo will apparently be brought back to the community this fall, thanks to the Palms Neighborhood Council.

The Council's Representative Assembly on April 5 approved a grant of $4,000 for the popular civic event, which has been led by Westside Village activist Jean Parker since its beginning many years ago. The rodeo features safety demonstrations by the LAPD and the distribution of bicycles to lucky kids of our district.

The most recent rodeo — two years ago — was held at Clover Avenue School in conjunction with a fair sponsored by the Westside Village homeowners association. It drew very few Palms kids — fewer children than there were bicycles to give away, in fact.

The idea this year is to once again schedule the rodeo at Palms Middle School.

The Palms Representative Assembly also:

1. Granted $4,960 to the Pacifica Community Charter School for a "Compassionate Parenting, Effective Families" workshop series, to be open to the entire Palms neighborhood.

2. Heard a presentation by Kate Bartolo of the Kor Group concerning plans to convert into condos the new mixed-use bulding now being constructed on Venice Blvd. at Clarington Ave. The matter was referred by President Pauline Stout to the Council's Land-Use and Development Committee.
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What a bargain!
Palms museum director draws no pay
In a story on the big bucks being earned by many Los Angeles museum directors — almost half a million yearly to the guy who runs the downtown Museum of Contemporary Art, for example — the Los Angeles Times on April 2 had this item of local interest:

"Conversely, the only Los Angeles museum director to be profiled in the New Yorker and awarded a MacArthur 'genius' grant puts in 60 hours a week for nothing: Museum of Jurassic Technology director David Wilson."

Not to worry: Wilson's grant of $100,000 yearly for five years (beginning in October 2001) helped pay for the new tea room (toward which the arrow is pointing) in the building on Venice Blvd. just east of Bagley.

We salute our local genius because in his Web site he refers to his location as within "the historic Palms district of Los Angeles," giving our neighborhood the credit to which it is due.
What an honor!
Palms center director gets $25,000 prize
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has given its 2006 Lucelia Artist Award to Matthew Coolidge, director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Palms. The prize comes with a $25,000 purse.

Founded in 1994, the center arranges exhibitions, tours and lectures about the built environment.

Coolidge won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004 and a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 2005.

The center's projects combine perspectives drawn from geography, installation and conceptual art, tourism and political economy; they've centered on landscape perception, unusual and undernoticed places,and touristic practices.

Coolidge has lectured widely on contemporary landscape matters and has studied human-induced changes to the landscape professionally since joining the center staff in 1994.

Among the exhibits that he has curated are "Hinterland" (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions 1997), "Commonwealth of Technology" (at the List Center for Visual Arts, MIT, 1999), and "The Nellis Range Complex: Landscape of Conjecture" (at CLUI Los Angeles, 1999).

He is the author of several books published by the center, including The Nevada Test Site: A Guide to the Nation's Nuclear Proving Ground; Around Wendover: An Examination of the Anthropic Landscape of the Great Salt Lake Desert Region; and Route 58: A Cross-Section of Southern California.
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