in preparing for Palms's first neighborhood election.

For example:

1. A staff worker in the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, or DONE, decided that the Palms Neighborhood Council could not have an officer called the "Neighborhood Watch chair." Why? Because, she said, "the Watch is a different organization" from the Council.

So the Neighborhood Council was forced to (ostensibly) sever its long-standing alliance with the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch.

under the new setup — and how to provide the necessary leadership when the current Watch chair, Terry Robinson, decides to quit — as she has said she would do.

2. Based upon a misunderstanding of the Palms bylaws, the independent election administrator, Jerry Kvasnicka of the League of Women Voters, at first ruled that all stakeholders should be able to vote for all the offices open for election, even if that stakeholder did not live, work or own property within the district involved.

By the time the misunderstanding was cleared up, vote-by-mail ballots had already been printed (left) and sent to the voters who had asked for them.

To his credit, Kvasnicka developed

These blows to outreach are really unconscionable on the part of DONE. We hope they will not be repeated when Palms gets control of its own budget of $50,000 a year.

Even though mistakes have been made, the biggest mistake of all would be to make a big fuss about them — we don't need any election challenges to provide weeks or months of controversy (as has happened in several other areas of the city, most notably in Van Nuys).

Let the election and the counting go forward without challenge. Even the losers will win — because we will need a massive dose of people power to staff our committees and work on our neighborhood projects.

The next Palms community election is only a year off; we can learn from the mistakes of this year's voting — and make sure they don't happen again.

Like many folks, I have a jar where I toss all the loose change I have picked up during the day.

I've discovered I can take the coins — mostly pennies, nickels and dimes — to the Albertsons market at Palms and Sepulveda and use the coin counter to tote them up. Instead of getting a chit for the value of the coins (minus an 8% processing fee), though, I always make a donation to one of the five charitable agencies listed on the screen — and there is NO PROCESSING FEE.

I had been choosing UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.

The other day I decided to check the Charity Navigator Web site to see if I was making the right decision with my $25.48 in coins. This is a marvelous resource: It rates about 4,000 charities in such things as organizational efficiency, fund-raising expenses, pay of the chief executive officer, and so forth.

I found that the U.S. Fund for UNICEF had a four-star rating and a numerical score of 61.29. The American Red Cross had a higher score, at 64.11.

Charles J. Lyons, the president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, earned $329,133 in 2003, about a tenth of a percent of the total outlay of $254 million. Marsha Johnson Evens, the president and CEO of the Red Cross, earned $621,435, but that was only a hundredth of a percent of the charity's total outlay of $3.3 billion.

The other charities on the screen were the Muscular Dystrophy Assn., rated three stars and 55.89; the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, rated three stars and 52.89; and the March of Dimes, only one star and 38.15.

I think I will stick with UNICEF for the time being. The next time the jar gets full.

Thanks to a friendly homeowner, I am able to bring you some stories from the May 2005 newsletter of the Westside Village Civic Assn. (It's not sent to apartment people, so I don't get a copy normally.)

Stephanie Johnson wrote some warm, glowing praise on "The Value of Westside Village." I've posted a copy of it here.

And there's a statement of past president Charles West giving his reasons why Westside Village was attached to Mar Vista back in 2002. You can read it here.

Greg Severson, the newsletter editor, has included an article about himself, and why not? I do it all the time. (Marie Wallace, a longtime Village activist, has messaged me that she wrote the article, and a very nice one it is, too, I feel.)

I found out that Alaska-born Severson got his degree from Western Washington University in Bellingam, Wash., which was the first place where I taught journalism — back in 1970-72. I don't think Severson was of college age at that time.

He is also in charge of the WVCA Web site, here.

Finally, the WVCA bulletin brought the news that Walter Renzi has been honored for his "extensive volunteer efforts" at Charnock Road School. Renzi is also a devoted member of the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch.

One project I opposed as an individual is the French High School. The developers tried to say how much Palms would benefit from this high school. This is untrue.

Few families in Palms can afford the tutition. Look at the value of the cars their kids drive. Few Palms families earn that much in a year. This school caters to the north-of-Sunset elite. Real estate in Palms is cheaper than real estate closer to their home.

The school is in Palms, but they call it the "West L.A. Campus." Palms to them is where the riff-raff live. That is the only reason the super-rich would "slum it" and send their children here.

To get their development approved, they hired a high-priced public relations firm, lobbyists and lawyers. Since we have not even held our election and sworn in our officers for our future Neighborhood Council, our opposition was no match for all the money they spent to oppose us.

We raised a concern about parking. They do not have enough. Their $450-an-hour lawyers said the students will be told not to park in the neighborhood. It is naive to think that these spoiled rich brats will have any regard for the "locals."

It is not just Palms that has schools for the elite. Across our border is Windward School, a competitor of the French school. There are other competing private schools in the area for which this part of town is "cheaper" real estate.

There are other examples of development in which we had no say; the French School is just the most gross.

I strongly disagree with your mean article on the Lycée.  You are ignorant of many facts and you sound extremely jealous.  I am not rich and my daughter has been attending the school for 12 years now. 

How can you generalize your opinion on more than a thousand young children?? Are they all brats?  Do you personally know them?

I think you need to look at your motivation for writing this article. This is America.  Everybody has an opportunity to study, be creative, work hard and make money.  I could say a lot more . . .