On June 7, 2006, 
the Palms Representative Assembly voted to place six blue "Palms" identification signs on the boundaries of our community (like the one on Motor Ave. south of Cheviot Hills, right). It even agreed to pony up $1,200 to help pay for them.
The idea was to get them installed to coincide with the 120th anniversary of the founding of Palms on Dec. 26, 1886.
But City Councilman Bill Rosendahl's office refused to OK the markers because of an ongoing dispute over the boundary between the Palms and the Mar Vista community councils. Len Nguyen, Rosendahl's field deputy for both areas, told the Palms Representative Assembly on Nov. 1 that the signs can't be put up without a resolution of the City Council spelling out the Palms community limits.
The other council members — Jack Weiss and Herb Wesson are following Rosendahl's lead.
The problem is that:
• The Palms Neighborhood Council border is in a state of flux. Campaigns are under way to change it in two places — (1) in Westside Village and (2) north of National Blvd. east of Overland.
• The neighborhood-council boundaries as decreed by the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners do not jibe with the history of Palms (see an example in the story just below). Some feel it would be detrimental to our neighborhood to have a truncated definition of our territory frozen in a City Council resolution.
• The requirement for a border delineation is brand-new. It has never been applied. All the other official blue community signs throughout the city were put up without any border description at all — and normally without any City Council action. Signs delineating Northwest Palms as "Westside Village" were put up without any City Council authorization at all.
Palms West Residential Representative Willie Bell said at the Nov. 1 meeting: "Maybe they should go back and take them down. That's not fair!"
A new "Westside Village" sign was installed on Palms Blvd. last July (left) to replace an older one that had been threatening to fall down. Senior Transportation Engineer Mohammed Blorfroshan could cite no record of any authorization of "Westside Village" signs, and a search by The Sun of City Council archives dating back to 1940 couldn't turn up any either.
An ordinance effective early this year requires the signatures of 500 people to "name or rename" neighborhoods within L.A. Yet Mar Vista did not have to go through that process. The boundaries for Mar Vista were marked last spring with a simple resolution introduced by Council Member Rosendahl — and "Mar Vista" placards were put up with a great fanfare and a speech by Rosendahl, who lives in that community.
This story will keep moving. We hope it moves fast enough to get our signs installed by Dec. 26, 2006. but we doubt that will be the case. Keep your eye on this space for further details.
A request was made by Principal Oliver H. Ramirez for the council to fund the fence as a way to (1) keep children from straying into the traffic on Motor Avenue, (2) prevent grafitti, (3) forestall use of the area by skateboarders, (4) prevent homeless people from sleeping in the area at night and (5) keep trash from being thrown there, said Palms President Pauline Stout,