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THIS IS THE WESTSIDE VILLAGE PAGE
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One of only two Web pages in the entire universe that give a woof about the Westside Village area of Palms.
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WESTSIDE VILLAGE LINKS
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FEATURES
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SCHOOLS
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MAPS
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ORGANIZATIONS
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Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch
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This NONCOMMERCIAL site is a harmless hobby of George Garrigues, who has lived in the Westside Village district of Palms for 12 years. These pages have no connection with any organization.
Send him e-mail with corrections and comments
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Palms president requests support from Mar Vista in a Westside Village border research project
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| March 5, 2007
Rob Kadota, chair
Mar Vista Community Council
P.O. Box 66871
Mar Vista, CA 90066
Dear Rob:
Since the inception of the Palms Neighborhood Council, the Council has regularly received requests by residents and business owners of Westside Village to be included within the boundaries of a joint Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council. Petitions were also sent to BONC and to L.A. City Council members.
Because some of these Westside Village residents are also stakeholders of the Palms Neighborhood Council, the Council agreed to research this issue. The Council has assigned this responsibility to our Outreach Committee, chaired by Mario Bruhwiler. We believe that our research efforts will be most effective if they can be conducted jointly with authorized representatives of the Mar Vista Community Council.
We would respectfully ask that you agendize this request at the next meeting of the Mar Vista Community Council to authorize a committee to work with us.
We look forward to working with you and the Mar Vista Community Council to address the requests made by our mutual stakeholders.
Sincerely,
Pauline Stout, President
Palms Neighborhood Council
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| [March 15, 2007]
Pauline,
I got your letter. I'll place your request for participation in a Palms/MVCC sponsored outreach on our April MVCC Executive Committee for discussion and consideration of placing the item before the full board. I don't have the letter in front of me so apologize if my reference to your request is not complete.
Thank you,
Rob Kadota
Chair
Mar Vista Community Council
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Residents prepare for Woodbine Street
tree-planting and block party
Car and doggie wash helps raise funds for the project
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This bilingual group of apartment residents will hold a street party and tree-planting on Woodbine Street west of Overland.
Este grupo bilingue de habitantes de apartamentos presentara una fiesta callejera en la calle de Woodbine al oeste de Overland, donde tambien plantaran arboles.
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Marina Rosa Gonzalez (top row, second from left) is heading a committee of Palms apartment dwellers who want to get to know their neighbors better. They held a successful fund-raising "car and doggie wash" Saturday, March 10, in the 10700 block of Woodbine, west of Overland.
With the proceeds, they will plant trees in their block of Woodbine Street on Saturday, April 28. They are seeking donations for the trees, and they need permission signatures to close off the street for a block party that day.
The participants decided to call their event the Woodbine Street Block Party.
A vote by e-mail gave these results: 5 votes for Woodbine Street Block Party, 2 votes each for Palms Neighborhood Block Party, Palms Neighborhood Festival and Love Thy Neighborhood Fiesta, 1 vote each for Love Your Neighborhood Fiesta and Woodbine Street Fiesta.
More information: Gonzalez at (310) 729-4619 or marinarg99@hotmail.com or Manuel Huerta at manuel@sparcmurals.org.
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THIS IS THE LETTER THAT STARTED IT ALL
Dear Neighbors,
My name is Marina, and I live at 10711 Woodbine Street. I would like to invite all of you to participate in a street festival that I am organizing with a couple other neighbors. We are not part of any organization, we are just a bunch of people who live on Woodbine and other streets of Palms. We are calling our event the Palms Neighborhood Block Party. We are planning it for Sat, April 28th. (That is the same weekend as the Mayor's Big Sunday Weekend). We are a small committee right now and could use some more leaders/volunteers.
The reason being is this, we have just acquire about 20 trees from the organization Tree People (for Woodbine specifically) and they are about to offer me more for this event (to plant as a community on that day). Tree People mentioned Lawler and Rose. I get the feeling that this is up for negotiation. I am also about to be offerred 100 volunteers from Disney who have decided that they are interested in helping out with just this kind of event (part of Mayor's Big Sunday).
We are trying to organize folks here on Woodbine, but would be happy to include more people. Specifically, we need help going door to door to invite people toparticipate in the planning and to volunteer. This is a huge task and we need more bodies. Please feel free to email me if you are interested in participating in ANY WAY. Or feel free to call me at 310.729.4619.
Any asisstance in this would be greatly appreciated. We are having a car and doggie wash on March 10 from 10-3 to start fundraising (10711 Woodbine). Let me know if you'd like to volunteer or sell pre-sale tickets!
Marina Gonzalez
marinarg99@hotmail.com
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Complaint is filed about a grant for a neighborhood newsletter; a mysterious Mar Vista 'grievance committee' is on the case — or is it?
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Directors of the Mar Vista Community Council on March 13 agreed to allocate $6,000 to buy "advertising" in what the council called "Neighborhood Associations Newsletters" over the next year.
This action was taken in lieu of making a direct grant to the associations, which has been ruled illegal by the city attorney for several reasons — including the fact that the newsletters' content might be considered political in nature.
The allocation is contingent on each association's making "a concerted effort to distribute to apartment dwellers as well as single family homes."
It does not seem that this action has rendered moot the grievance filed by Venice resident Rick Selan (see the related story just below).
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TROUBLE IN THE WEST FOR THE MAR VISTA COMMUNITY COUNCIL
The Mar Vista Community Council, which acquired jurisdiction over Westside Village several years ago, is having trouble at the other end of its district — in the Centinela-Walgrove-Lincoln Blvd. area.
It started when the MVCC, as the city-chartered neighborhood council is known, allocated $1,500 of city money to the newly formed Ven-Mar Neighborhood Assn. to help with printing Ven-Mar's first newsletter.
That didn't sit too well with Rick Selan, a Venice activist who has long been on the outs with most of the power structure in both the LAUSD and the Walgrove Ave. area.
"This bad behavior has been on going since our community stopped the building of a private high school on Walgrove [Avenue Elementary School] property in 1998-99 when Walgrove Principal Yuri Hayashi went on public television requesting this private high school be built with a 44-year lease," he wrote in a recent e-mail.
(The Sun cannot verify if any of that is true or not.)
Selan, a former LAUSD math teacher who now does free-lance coaching and tutoring, is known in the Mar Vista-Venice area for filing complaint after complaint, grievance after grievance for every conceivable slight — both real and imaginary — and e-mailing them to all kinds of public officials, from the Governor on down.
The motto he attaches to many of his e-mails is Ubi Ignus Est?, which means Where's the Fire?
It doesn't seem to bother him that most of his grievances are never acted on.
Selan''s most recent complaint, however, is being taken seriously by the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. In fact, Asst. City Attorney Tom Griego has ruled that the $1,500 allocation would be an illegal gift of city funds.
MVCC President Rob Kadota attempted to defuse the situation when he placed an item on a Jan. 30, 2007, Board of Directors agenda to "reconsider" the allocation as a way to get rid of Selan's grievance.
On Feb. 6, the MVCC officers held a drawing among five "volunteers" to choose the people who would rule on Selan's grievance.
The result: Mar Vistans Jean Ushima and Steve Wallace were chosen for a hearing that was to take place at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 19, in the Mar Vista branch library.
The Sun has yet to find out if this hearing actually took place (we e-mailed several people): Selan said he would not attend.
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"Walking into these hearings would be like walking into a trap with only 4 hours' notice and rules that have never been explained before," he wrote in an e-mail he sent on March 19 to a whole bunch of people, including The Sun.
There's more: Selan filed a grievance with Kadota about Wallace's role on the grievance panel because of a perceived conflict of interest.
But Kadota replied there was nothing he could do to remove Wallace.
The Sun's editor sent e-mails to Kadota on March 11 and 21 requesting information about the grievance committee. Kadota responded on March 21:
"I think grievance hearings are meant to be kept confidential so I don't think any member of the grievance committee will be able to speak to you about it. I've cc'd Barry Stone, DONE Advocate. He might be able to help you.
"Since I'm the subject of at least one grievance it would be particulary important for me not to comment on the process as well."
It appears, though, that somebody from the MVCC has been meeting somewhere behind the scenes over this matter; Selan forwarded a March 22 e-mail he received from MVCC Secretary Laura Bodensteiner telling him that the grievance committee had scheduled a meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 27, in the Community Room of the Mar Vista Library. She attached a copy of what she called "the most updated MVCC Grievance procedures." (See below.)
The Sun's editor visited the library at that time and place, but nobody was there. A librarian confirmed that the MVCC had reserved the room.
Bodensteiner sent an e-mail to The Sun on March 24 stating she was "seeking clarification" from the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment of "what I am permitted to share with the public in regards to grievances."
"The Grievance Committee is an independent group convened by the Secretary, but it is not chaired by the Secretary," she wrote.
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Mar Vista Community Council Grievance Committee
Grievance Process
[Editor's note: This document was furnished by Rick Selan. The Sun cannot vouch for its authenticity nor does The Sun know who wrote it.]
• Board Secretary shall have 14 days to select committee (comprised of three (3) stakeholders who are randomly selected from a list of stakeholders who have previously expressed interest in serving on such a committee) and refer grievance to committee after the Board has heard grievance.
• The Grievance Committee shall have 90 days to address and review grievance after it has been considered at referred to the committee by the Board at a General Meeting.
• When the grievant is notified on the hearing date and time, the Notice Indicate: (1) no contact is to be made with members of the Grievance Committee in any form, i.e., mail, email, phone, etc. by grievant(s), and (2) the grievance hering is to involve only the Procedural Matters pertaining to the Mar Vista Neighborhood Council’s actions pertaining to the specific issue(s) raised.
Suggestion: (This would be part of the Notice and could even be printed on the letterhead (at the bottom of the page) that is sent to grievant(s) as a Notice of Procedure.
•Grievant(s) shall not contact members of the grievance panel directly. Grievance Committee should receive correspondence through Board Secretary. If grievant has supplemental documentation, the Grievance Committee may choose whether to consider it or not.
•Only the grievant or whoever signed the appeal can appear at hearing unless requested by Committee.
• If an organization or large numbers of people are named as grievant(s), only one person will be designated to appear on behalf of the grievant(s).
• Board Secretary shall coordinate a time and meeting location for the Committee to meet with person(s) submitting grievance within (the) 14 days after Board has heard grievance(s). Committee shall meet prior to hearing from Grievant(s) in order to review the matter.
• Person(s) who submitted grievance(s) at the discretion of the Grievance Committee shall have a Maximum of 30 minutes to address the committee.
• It is the Committee’s discretion to call upon witnesses and/or hear written statements from the other party (ies) involved.
• Minutes, motions and any information needed by Committee shall be provided by the Board Secretary.
• After the Grievance Hearing has closed, and Grievance Committee has discussed their findings, a member of the panel shall prepare a written report to be forwarded by the Secretary of the Board outlining the panel’s collective recommendations. These recommendations should be heard by the Board at there [sic] next General Meeting.
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No permission found for 'Westside Village' boundary markers
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 The Sun went on a hunt for any indication that the "Westside Village" markers on many of our local streets have received official permission to be there but could find nothing.
We looked through the city archives downtown and also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the city's Department of Transportation.
We found that the sign on Palms Blvd. facing east (at left) was installed in July 2006 to replace one that had fallen down. The installation was done at the request of Marie Wallace of the Westside Village homeowners association.
Stacy Starkey, the department's custodian of records, said the department doesn't keep files older than 10 years.
We have been told by two long-time residents that the "Westside Village" marker on Westwood Blvd. facing north (near Trader Joe's) actually replaced a "Palms" sign many years ago, but we don't know if that report is true.
We are assuming that the markers were placed at the request of the homeowners group through the good offices of whoever was our City Council member at the time. Since February 2006 there has been a more formal method for marking neighborhoods, including a study by city departments and approval by the full City Council.
At any rate, some people like them and others don't.
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OTHER PAGES
Click on the underlined links to bring them up
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HOME PAGE
Background of The Palms-Village Sun
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CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
Thursday afternoon jazz livens post office area
Actors Gang is resident theater company at the Ivy Station
Colorful art installation covers two sides of a Washington Blvd. building
Theaters and museums in and near Palms
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DINING OUT
Indonesian, Mexican, Ethiopian, Indian, Chinese —
you name it; we got it
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CULVER CITY
Link takes you to the Culver City home page
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