• The Palms Neighborhood Council has allocated $4,575 in Outreach funds to Pacifica Community Charter School for a pilot Family Writing Project: Kids and parents from local elementary schools are attending classes together on Sundays to learn how to compose essays and other kinds of writing in the English language.
The vote in the Representative Assembly of the Neighborhood Council on May 2, 2007, was unanimous, although questions were raised about the limited number of pupils and parents that will be served through the program (about 35).
"It's a small number, but the effects are enormous," said Melissa Lubaszka, the lead teacher and program coordinator. She noted that a community-wide summing-up should attract a larger number of people at the end of the term in late June.
• Field deputy Len Nguyen of Council Member Bill Rosendahl's office told the Palms Council that the city is trying to get the state to relinquish Venice Blvd., which is now a state highway under the jurisdiction of Caltrans (the California Department of Transportation).
Rosendahl has introduced a "livable boulevards plan," his office said in a press release. It would include $550,000 for "boulevard master plan studies of Sepulveda, Olympic, Pico, Santa Monica, and Venice boulevards." That would cover mass transit, traffic flow, land-use planning, and streetscape studies. He also proposed $200,000 for bicycle and pedestrian transit plans in Council District 11.
• The new traffic signal at Charnock and Overland is moving forward slowly, Residential Representative Willie Bell told the Neighborhood Council. The work was delayed when it was discovered that a power line was too close to the top of one of the signal standards, he said.
"They told me in will be finished by the end of July; that means it will probably be done by the end of November," Bell joked. He said the DWP will have to move the line to a higher pole.
• A speed bump that was removed from Midvale Ave. when it was recently resurfaced south of Charnock will be replaced, Bell said, noting that the smoother pavement has turned the street into "a race track."
• Palms President Pauline Stout said the Palms Roadworks and Transportation Committee has asked the city's Department of Transportation for a study looking toward a four-way stop at Watseka and Regent, but the city has not responded.
The committee is also seeking information about four-way stop signs where National, Rose and Keystone meet. The corner is now reputedly the only three-way-stop intersection in Los Angeles.
“The majority of the voting stakeholders of Palms, California, U.S.A, in support of the men and women serving in the Armed Forces of the United States, urge President Bush to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and immediately begin the safe and orderly withdrawal of all United States forces; and further urge President Bush and the United States Congress to provide the necessary diplomatic and non-military assistance to promote peace and stability in Iraq and the Middle East."