It was a great beginning.
That's my feeling about what was billed as the first Leadership Forum sponsored by the Palms Neighhborhood Council.
Will there be a second?
Who knows? It took a lot of work-hours to complete the one on Saturday, Feb. 4, and I wouldn't blame the committee members for just collapsing for a while. Like a year or two. Or the next decade.
Yet the day at the Culver-Palms Church of Christ on Venice Blvd. was certainly a success. All of the pieces seemed to fit together nicely. I won't single out anybody other than President Todd Robinson for praise, because I am sure to forget someone.
But I do praise Robinson. That's him at the right, with the chart; he is good at using those visuals.
It was his idea to draw together the "leaders" of our Palms community. A goodly number of them attended; a goodly number did not.
I can't figure out why nobody came from Palms Elementary School. Two enormous apartment-commercial projects will go up just north of the campus, teachers complain about lack of parking, traffic on Palms and on Motor is ferocious — it sure seems like the Palms Elementary folks might show a little more interest in the community they serve.
Nobody from Charnock School, either.
But I guess educators are entitled to have their weekends to themselves, to rest up for the onslaught of the succeeding week.
Palms Middle School was represented by the new principal, Bonnie Murrow. And it was good to see our branch librarian, Maggie Johnson, cross the freeway to let us know that she stands ready to bring library services to our kids, if they can't go to her.
(It's not comforting for children to have to walk over the roaring Rosa Parks 10 Freeway to get to the library, everybody agreed.)
Councilman Bill Rosendahl gave his trademark rip-roaring, up-and-at-'em, devil-take-the-hindmost pep talk. He said he was going to fight for the rights of tenants, and I liked that idea, being one of them myself.
Now we have a good number of tasks before us, laid out during the discussion groups on such things as education, business, safety and city services and long-term vision.
This community meeting marks a growth point in the history of Palms.
But equally as exciting was the appearance of Culver City Council Member Steven Rose at a meeting of the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch on Feb. 1. When was the last time that an official of our younger sibling next door even acknowledged the existence of a community called Palms?
We are certainly on the move, and the activities during the first week in February are something to be proud of.
