(b) A 2002 map of the Automobile Club of Southern California places PALMS north of Rose Avenue, south of National, on both sides of Overland. (Exhibit B.)

(c) A Microsoft Corp. map dated 2001 used in the Los Angeles Public Library Web site places PALMS to the west of Overland Ave. and north of Palms Blvd. within the area known as Westside Village. (Exhibit C.)

(d) The current LAPD Basic Car map places PALMS and Westside Village in the same basic car unit, 14A27, under Senior Lead Officer Anthony Vasquez. Mar Vista, on the other hand, is mapped within LAPD Basic Car 14A25, under Senior Lead Officer Craig White. (Exhibit D.) The failure to take this into account is contrary to the encouragement by the Plan for a Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils to set boundaries with reference to “police and fire districts.”

(e) A map on the LightRailNow.org Web page, showing a proposed route for the Exposition Blvd. light-rail line places PALMS squarely in the middle of the triangle marked by the I-405, the I-10 and Venice Blvd., including all of Westside Village. (Exhibit E.)

(f) A Big Blue Bus route map places PALMS within Rose, Kelton, National and Overland (which includes all of Westside Village) and Mar Vista within Palms, McLaughlin, National and Mountainview. (Exhibit F.)

(g) The Culver CityBus Map places PALMS within the I-405, Venice, Overland and the I-10 (which includes all of Westside Village) and Mar Vista within Centinela, Venice, Washington and the 405. (Exhibit G.)

(h) A transportation map in the SBC Culver City telephone book for 2002 places PALMS squarely in the center of Westside Village. (Exhibit H)

(i) Contrary to the finding of DONE, the southern boundary of MVCC in the Westside Village area is NOT “separated from adjacent communities by significant geographic or other features.” In fact, the boundary line runs east and west along a minor two-lane residential street, Charnock Road, with single-family zoning on the north and apartments predominating on the south. This line corresponds with the boundary of the Westside Village Civic Association, which is an exclusionary group that bars renters and condominium owners from its membership. This line was drawn to exclude and not to include. (Exhibits I and I-2.)

(2) HISTORICAL BOUNDARIES

(a) A June 26, 1907, map published in the Los Angeles Evening News, shows PALMS at the crossroads of three railroad lines. No other communities are in the area; Culver City was not founded until 1915 and today’s Mar Vista was simply bean fields and mustard grass. (Exhibit J.)

(b) The historical boundary between the Venice Mapping Area and PALMS, as witnessed by the 1906-1951 Sanborn’s Maps is down the center of Sepulveda Blvd., with Venice on the west and PALMS on the east. (Exhibit K.)

(c) A 1926 map of the Automobile Club of Southern California shows PALMS in a triangular area bounded by La Ballona Blvd. (the present Sawtelle Blvd.) on the west, National Blvd. on the north and east and Venice Blvd. on the south. The area includes the present Westside Village. Mar Vista is not shown on the map at all. (Exhibit L.)

(d) In Robinson, W.W., Culver City, A Calendar of Events (1939), PALMS is often mentioned and is shown prominently on a color map across the inside fold of the book. The map situates PALMS straddling Overland. (Exhibit M.)

1B. AREA PROFILE. The data completely ignored the contemporary and historical association of Westside Village and the rest of PALMS as witnessed by the following:

(1) CONTEMPORARY AREA PROFILE

(a) PALMS and Westside Village are within the attendance area of Palms Middle School, which straddles the boundary of PALMS and Westside Village. Mar Vista, on the other hand, is served by Mark Twain and Daniel Webster Middle schools, which are 3.1 and 1.2 miles respectively from the center of hilltop Westside Village (Queensland and Kelton). Palms Middle School is 0.4 of a mile from that intersection, within walking distance. (Exhibit P.)

(b) All of PALMS, including Westside Village, is within the attendance area of Alexander Hamilton High School (2.5 miles from the center of Westside Village). Mar Vista is served by Venice or University high schools, which are 3.5 and 4.0 miles respectively from Westside Village. (Exhibit Q.)

(c) Westside Village is entirely within the postal zone of 90034, served by the PALMS Post Office, but Mar Vista lies within postal zones 90066 and 90064, which are the Mar Vista and West Los Angeles stations. (Exhibit R and R-2.)

(d) Westside Village and the rest of PALMS are served by LAPD Basic Car 14A27, under Senior Lead Officer Anthony Vasquez. Mar Vista, on the other hand, is in LAPD Basic Car 14A25, under Senior Lead Officer Craig White. (Exhibit D, cited earlier.)

(e) Westside Village and the rest of PALMS are within the long-established Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch. SLO Vasquez is responsible for liaison with the Watch, which was never notified of any plans of the Mar Vista Community Council to move into the Palms-Westside Village area. (Exhibits S and T.)

(f) Westside Village and the rest of PALMS are protected by LAFD Fire Station 43 at 10243 National Blvd (in PALMS), which is 1.3 miles from Westside Village. (Exhibit U.) Most of Mar Vista is protected by FS 62 at 3631 Centinela, which is 2.2 miles from Westside Village. The failure to take this into account is contrary to the encouragement by the Plan for a Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils to set boundaries with reference to “police and fire districts.”

(g) Westside Village and the rest of PALMS are linked by public transportation via the No. 12 line of the Big Blue Bus (the PALMS line), which serves the north, west and south sides of Westside Village and passes through the center of PALMS almost to Culver City, thence via Venice Blvd. to South Robertson Blvd. at the eastern tip of PALMS. The line abuts or goes within a block of Clover Avenue Elementary School (Westside Village), Charnock Road Elementary School (Westside Village/western PALMS), Palms Middle School (Westside Village/western PALMS), Palms Elementary (central PALMS) and Hamilton High School (South Robertson). (Exhibit V.)

The 12 Limited line, which runs in the mornings and afternoons schooldays only, passes directly from Westwood Blvd. through Westside Village on National Blvd. to link with Venice Blvd. in southeast PALMS. (Exhibit W.)

(h) Westside Village and the rest of PALMS are within the LAUSD Board District 1 of Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, while Mar Vista is in District 4 of Marlene Canter. (Exhibit X.)

(i) The new Wells-Fargo Bank branch at Sepulveda and Palms Blvds., within Westside Village, is known as the PALMS branch, and the mural within features photographs of the old PALMS railroad station on National Blvd. and the old PALMS library on Woodbine Street. It was opened in 2002, and the mural photographs were chosen with input from the Palms Neighborhood Council and the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch. (Exhibits Y, Z and Z-2.)

(j) The proposed formation of a Palms Neighborhood Council (now in the preliminary stages under the aegis of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment) was an outgrowth of the regular meetings of the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch, which at the time of the formation of the Organizing Committee was meeting at Clover Avenue Elementary School within Westside Village. (Exhibit AA.)

(k) The precedent-breaking appearance of LAPD Chief William J. Bratton in PALMS in November 2003 was brought about primarily by Jeane Parker of Westside Village, a longtime member of the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch. Chief Bratton’s first appearance before any neighborhood council was co-sponsored by the Watch and the Palms Neighborhood Council. (Exhibit T, cited earlier.)

(l) Westside Village is considered by the UCLA Community Housing Office to be part of PALMS. A check of rental listings on January 28, 2003, found that three of the first 20 on the list were within the Westside Village boundaries and were listed as “Area: PALMS.” (Exhibits BB, BB-2 and BB-3.)

(2) HISTORICAL AREA PROFILE

(a) PALMS was founded in 1886 in a triangular area bounded by Overland on the west, Manning on the northeast and approximately Venice Blvd. on the south. (Manning is north of the I-10 and is now considered part of Rancho Park.)

(b) Over the years settlement spread outward from PALMS west of Overland into an area ending at the eastern edge of where Palms Middle School lies today. This is the area claimed by some to be part of the Westside Village district, although the original W.V. tract map shows the eastern boundary of the subdivision on the west edge of the present campus, not at Overland. (Exhibit K, cited earlier.)

(c) A WPA map of pre-World War II shows only six houses in all of Westside Village but a heavily built-up area between Overland Ave. on the east and the Palms Middle School site lies on the west, the houses in the latter area arranged in a strikingly similar land-use pattern to the rest of PALMS.

This small area, which had the same kind of modest, single-family homes as the rest of PALMS, was linked to PALMS on its east for two reasons: First, there were no homes or businesses westward until the outbreak of World War II, and, second, the present Palms Blvd (old Ocean Park Ave.) was not cut through to Sepulveda Blvd. on the west; it dead-ended at the present Palms Middle School campus. (Exhibit CC.) That’s why today there is a tunnel under Palms Blvd. to unite the campus. (Exhibit EE-2.)

(d) The first school to serve area kids was established in 1868 where La Ballona School is today, in present Culver City. It drew in children from La Cienega on the east to the ocean on the west, from the Santa Monica Mountains up north to Redondo Beach down south.

(e) When Culver City became incorporated, PALMS annexed to Los Angeles and Palms Elementary was built (in 1915) on Motor Avenue. It drew children from PALMS, including the few homes that existed in the present Westside Village area. (Exhibit DD.)

(f) Charnock Road Elementary School, on the border between Westside Village and the rest of PALMS, was built in 1947 to serve Westside Village and western PALMS. That was the only elementary school to serve Westside Village until Clover Ave. School was built in 1954. (Exhibit EE.)

(g) The opening of Palms Junior High School in 1949 was propelled both by people from older PALMS and from the new subdivision of Westside Village. It was built in Western PALMS on vacant land adjacent to the Westside Village tract. It actually is the glue that holds the entire area together. You can see the geographic importance of Palms Middle School to all of PALMS in several of the exhibits. (See Exhibit EE-2, cited earlier, for a history of the school’s founding.)

2. NEIGHBORHOOD OUTREACH. DONE found that the Organizing Committee of the MVCC had “generally” met the outreach requirement of the Plan and the Ordinance, but in fact the committee did not meet the outreach requirement within Westside Village.

A. The applicant submitted only 15 names of the thousands of people residing, working or owning property in Westside Village, two of them from the same address on Selby Ave. (Exhibit FF.) It appears from the map prepared by DONE that two of the 15 may have been employees, 12 lived in single-family homes and perhaps one was an apartment dweller. This flies in the face of the fact that renters are a heavy concentration in Westside Village, particularly along Palms Blvd., Rose Avenue, Sepulveda Blvd., National Blvd. and Overland Blvd. (Exhibit GG.)

B. There was virtually no outreach within Westside Village, except for meetings of the Westside Village Civic Association, which consists only of homeowners and bars membership to renters. There was reported outreach to businesses but no samples of what exactly was done nor when it was done nor the results. There was no outreach to apartment dwellers; as a renter myself I can testify to this, having been denied membership in the organization. (Exhibit HH). See also the reports made by Marie Wallace, a member of the WVCA, and Charles West, president of the WVCA, which document no outreach to renters, workers or businesses. (Exhibits II and JJ.)

C. Contrary to the statement of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) to Romerol Malveaux, director of the DONE field division (Page 8, 9 and 11 of his Aug. 2, 2002, report), there was absolutely no contact with the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch, a long-established organization that was responsible for erecting Neighborhood Watch signs within Westside Village.

D. Contrary to MVCC’s statement (Page 8, 9, 10 and 11), there was absolutely no contact with any parents’ or teachers’ groups at Palms Middle School.

E. Contrary to MVCC’s statement (Page 8, 9, 10 and 11), there was absolutely no outreach to the religious organizations in Westside Village, including Adat Shalom, 3030 Westwood Blvd.; Redeemer Baptist Church and Elementary School, 10792 National Blvd.; and St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 11000 National Blvd.

F. According to the Malveaux statement (Page 15), “language on most stakeholder support sheets states: ‘I support the formation of the Mar Vista Community Council.’” This language is faulty and misleading, inasmuch as Westside Village is more than two miles from Mar Vista and the 15 petitioners from Westside Village might very well support the formation of a Mar Vista neighborhood council but would not necessarily want to be included within its boundaries.

G. Contrary to Malveaux’s statement (Page 15 and 16) that “Plotted stakeholder names show that the names are distributed evenly throughout the proposed MVCC area,” the names are NOT distributed evenly, but are concentrated to the west of the I-405 freeway; in fact they are concentrated between Federal on the west and Sawtelle on the east, and this is probably due to the fact that signatures were taken at a special Mar Vista Park celebration in that area. There are only 15 names east of the 405 (of the 298 submitted). (Exhibit FF, previously cited.)

H. There were no public-notice locations located within Westside Village. Four of the locations were west of the San Diego Freeway and one was the hard-to-navigate MVCC Web site. (Exhibit KK and LL.) There are still no public-notice locations in Westside Village.

3. GEOGRAPHIC COMPACTNESS AND CONTIGUOUSNESS

As you can see from a map of the Mar Vista Community Council boundaries, the addition of Westside Village to MVCC violates the “compactness” rule of the Plan: the addition juts out into PALMS on the east side of the San Diego Freeway like a thumb hit by a hammer. As a result, the rest of PALMS is involuntarily restricted to an irregular-shaped district that itself violates the rule of compactness.

Even though Westside Village is fairly small (I can walk through it with my dog in about 25 minutes), the MVCC map gerrymanders western PALMS so badly that only one to three blocks of uncertified PALMS are left between the minor-street boundary of Charnock Road and the Culver City line on Venice Blvd. (Exhibit I-2, cited earlier.)

What’s more, Westside Village can be said to be contiguous to Mar Vista only in the same sense that France is contiguous to Great Britain across the English Channel. Westside Village and the rest of PALMS are divided from Mar Vista by an eight-lane superhighway!

4. INCLUSIVE MEMBERSHIP.

The separation of Westside Village from the rest of PALMS violates the Plan’s desired characteristic of inclusive membership in that it takes away from PALMS the several hundred single-family homeowners who could provide leadership and talent for a Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council.

Census records show that some 90 percent of the residents of PALMS, without Westside Village, are tenants. Returning Westside Village homeowners (and the hundreds of desirable renters in the more upscale apartments of the district) to PALMS would greatly foster the Plan’s goals and objectives under Article 1.

As it stands, the Organizing Committee of the Palms Neighborhood Council is hampered by a lack of people to help in its work. About 30% of PALMS (by area) has been wrenched away to leave an APARTMENT GHETTO to fend for itself. Renters by their very nature are mobile, and the entire community of PALMS looks to the flair and guidance that the stable homeowners of Westside Village can provide. (Some of them are indeed active in the PALMS area, and they will, when asked, support this petition.)

------------------------------------

For these reasons, I ask the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners to decertify the jurisdiction of the Mar Vista Community Council from the area east of the I-405 San Diego Freeway and to enable that area to freely opt to join a proposed Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council.

___________________________________________

GEORGE GARRIGUES
10720 Palms Blvd., Apt. 106
Los Angeles, Calif. 90034 (PALMS/Westside Village)

310-839-7708
loudbark99@yahoo.com