(Between Rose Ave. and Kingsland St.)

•

(This one is on Midvale Ave.)

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(On Kelton Ave., March 2005.)

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• Charnock Road Elementary School •
• Clover Ave. School and its dog problem •
• Clover Ave. School and its trees •
• More trees, a curving street and a gentle hillside •
• If you've got it, build on it •
• If you don't have it, rent it •
• If you don't have it and can't rent it, get some advice about it from Psychic Maria •
• The little man in our wait-walk signals •
• Faith in finding our feline friends •
• Palms Middle School •
• The right to wave our Flag if we want to •
• Big trees with fuzzy bark on our "Apartment Row" •
• Wicked wheels •
• Our Moreton Bay fig tree •
• The Big Blue Bus •
• Our friendly letter carriers •
• Oh, did we mention our trees? •

A motion by Richard Leib and George Garrigues of the S-U-P-E-R organization to declare that the Mar Vista Community Council is "neutral" on the Westside Village boundary issue was ruled out of order at a meeting of the Outreach Committee of the MVCC Wednesday evening, March 23.

The motion would also have named the Los Angeles City Department of Human Relations as the agency to oversee an election within Westside Village to help settle the dispute.

Outreach chair Bahaa Mikhail said the motion was not within the jurisdiction of the committee, which backed his decision by a lopsided vote.

It was the second time that a motion concerning Westside Village was ruled out of order by a Mar Vista committee chair. The first was last September when Garrigues attempted to present a motion that would have excluded the Village from any part of the Mar Vista "Concept Plan."

The Leib-Garrigues motion follows:

I move that the Outreach Committee refer the following resolution to the Board of Directors with a recommendation for a yes vote:

"The Board of Directors of the Mar Vista Community Council resolves as follows in the matter of the proposed forum on and separation of Zone 1 (Westside Village) from the MVCC and its joining with Palms:

"1. The Board is neutral on the position of whether this separation should be accomplished or a forum should be held.

"2. The Board believes the decision on a change in the status of Zone 1 should be made by a vote of the Stakeholders in that Zone.

"3. The matter should be referred by the involved parties to the Los Angeles City Department of Human Relations to mediate and oversee the implementation of an information campaign and election within Zone 1 concerning the neighborhood council boundaries.

"4. The parties involved in the dispute should work directly with the Department of Human Relations.

"5. Neither the Board of the MVCC nor any of its committees is a party to the dispute. The MVCC is a neutral body which stands ready to assist the Department of Human Relations in any way it can to resolve the boundary issue."

Westside Village was attached to Mar Vista in 2002 on the signatures of only 15 local Stakeholders and with no posted notice anywhere in the Village.

That was madness at the outset.

Since then we have had to suffer through the following insanities of the Mar Vista people:

• Spending $8,000 of city money on a "speed trailer" that has been parked since fall 2004 on a Mar Vista street next to the home of a Mar Vista Board member. Links.

• Agendas received from Mar Vista officers listing such illuminating topics as "How to best handle future PRA requests" (Executive Board, 4/5/05), and "SMO committee spin up" (Transportation Committee, 3/22/05). If you can explain what these abbreviations mean to the average person, please let us know.

• Attempts to copyright the public records of the Mar Vista Community Council, for heaven's sake! Go here for the story.

• A plan to place "Mar Vista Community Council" boundary signs as far east of Overland Ave. (squelched, thanks to the opposition of The Sun and many Westside Village residents). Links.

The Mar Vista Community Council held its annual installation meeting Wednesday evening, April 13, at the Spitfire Grilll — in the city of Santa Monica.

The restaurant is at the Santa Monica Airport.

Ken Alpern of the Westside Village homeowners' assn. is one of the at-large Directors who were installed on the Mar Vista Board. Reinstalled, actually, because he was first elected two years ago and has served since then.

The other six Directors to get an oath of office from Council Member Cindy Miscikowski are all from west of the 405 Freeway.

The Mar Vista Community Council has a newsletter it tries to distribute four times a year to all its Stakeholders, but this laudable attempt at public information (or propaganda, some would say) leaves much to be desired.

The city of L.A. pays an outfit called "The Walking Man" to go from house to house hanging the Mar Vista newsletters on doorknobs (the Sun photo shows one of them doing his job in the single-family area of Westside Village).

Apartment residents don't normally get the newsletters. That failure omits the more than seven out of every 10 Mar Vistans and Westside Villagers who live in apartments.

While Palms is preparing to vote on its first Representative Assembly, Westside Villagers have to look on with some envy.

We have NOT had an elected district member on the Mar Vista Board since the resignation of Bobby Holliday in June 2004 after serving only two months.

MVCC Chair Tom Ponton of Mar Vista has appointed Mar Vista resident Robert Mednick in Holliday's place. He is the manager of the Palms branch of Wells Fargo bank on Palms Blvd. and also reportedly owns property in the Village.

Mar Vista has no provision for an election to fill a Board vacancy (Palms does). The next time Westside Villagers will have a chance to vote on a Board member for our district will be March 2006!

Not fair. not democratic.