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This map shows how the Mar Vista Community Council's borders cross the San Diego Freeway to take in a large area. The southern boundary of Westside Village (the yellow area) is Charnock Avenue, a minor residential street. Palms is traditionally considered to be the area east of the freeway, on the right of the map.
This 1926 map shows how the affected area (in yellow) has historically been a part of Palms. It also demonstrates the savaging of Palms by a boundary line approved by the city in disregard of geography and ignorance of history.
This map shows how the area served by the
PALMS-WESTSIDE VILLAGE NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH (Basic Car 14A27)
has been divided by the artificial boundary line.
(Mar Vista is served by Basic Car 14A25.)
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Prof. West S. Village looks out his window at Mar Vista across the freeway.
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VILLAGER$ WOULD RECEIVE MORE DOLLAR$ WITH PALM$ — AND MAR VISTAN$ WOULD BENEFIT, TOO!
(BUT AN ENLARGED PALMS COUNCIL WOULD LOSE OUT)
Statistics show that Westside Villagers would receive some $6,500 more next year from the city for street repair and other projects if they were affiliated with Palms instead of Mar Vista.
Some 11, 550 Villagers will get an average of $2.96 per resident from the city in 2005-2006 under an affiliation with Mar Vista but would get $3.53 if they joined Palms.
The reason: A Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council would have about 42,600 residents, compared with the 50,417 who are within the current boundaries of the Mar Vista Community Council, including the Village.
Mayor Hahn says each neighborhood council will receive $100,000 a year for street repairs and $50,000 yearly for other projects and overhead. A smaller district would receive more money per resident.
A smaller Mar Vista Community Council without Westside Village would get about $3.86 next year for each of its 38,870 residents instead of $2.96 with the Village attached (as at present) for 50,417 residents.
This means, of course, that individual Palms residents would lose if they joined with Westside Village. The newly certified Palms Neighborhood Council has not yet taken a stand on the issue. It is still planning for its first elections to be held on May 22, 2005.
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| HOMEOWNERS' REPRESENTATIVE ATTACKED THE MESSENGER AND THE MESSAGE BUT IGNORED THE PETITIONERS
Westside Village Civic Assn. 'does not . . . represent the interests of renters, condos, or businesses'
'It is an organization of homeowners with objectives to maintain property values . . . .'
'Homeowner groups had the organizational skills and knowledge of City procedures to lead the way' to neighborhood councils
Westside Village is 'suddenly inundated with illegally posted signs . . . later found to be the work of George Garrigues'
'What was once a harmonious working relationship with all organizations in the community has now become acrimonious due to Mr. Garrigues's untrue and twisted statements, illegal distribution and questionable motivation'
'. . . a harassment situation . . .'
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On Dec. 14, 2004, the letter below was cited by Vice Chair Bill Christopher in remarks before the Los Angeles City Board of Neighborhood Commissioners. Click here to read his statement. The Sun received a copy on Feb. 9, 2005, after filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.
Roughly 120 homeowners, 60 apartment dwellers and 20 businesspeople have signed petitions urging the city to "take whatever steps are necessary" to allow formation of a Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council. Christopher said his commission lacks the power to do anything of the sort.
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Homeowners' board members rebuff a proposal to support
a Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council
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The original story as posted
on April 23, 2004.
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A response by Everett and Marie Wallace received on April 27, 2004
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The Westside Village Civic Assn., a homeowners' group, has decided to maintain its support of the Mar Vista Community Council rather than back a proposed Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council.
The group’s board of directors on April 13 turned down a request by a longtime homeowner in the area who asked that the association switch its allegiance from the west side of the San Diego Freeway to the east side.
Bobby Holiday, president of the Civic Assn. and a new Director of the Mar Vista Community Council, said the vote was unanimous to maintain a relationship with Mar Vista.
"But we want to work very closely with Palms," she said, calling Palms and the Village "historically linked."
A Palms Neighborhood Council is being formed in a J-shaped district that leaves out Westside Village.
The homeowner who appeared before the Civic Assn. board suggested that the Village should join with Palms.
“When I bought my house I had not even heard of Westside Village,” he said. “I thought I was in Palms.”
[Continued directly below.]
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We enjoyed reading your article about WVCA electing to stay with the MVCC. You have a lot of detail but several aspects of the mosaic of Westside Village, Mar Vista communities and Palms relationships might add depth.
1. Starting in the 1960’s homeowner associations (HOAs) were created throughout L.A. in response to the City’s policy of increasing density at the cost of single-family (R-1) communities.
(Some HOAs banded together in federations. WVCA belongs to Westside Civic Federation, consisting of 17 other HOAs.)
Many of the HOAs, including WVCA, were very successful in staving off high-rises, strip malls and other nonresidential inroads.
By the 90’s, the city power brokers determined a new City Charter was in order to dilute the power of HOAs. The Neighborhood Council idea was conceived and approved in the new City Charter. It remains to be seen how effective the NCs will be, as they are only advisory, but if they band together in federations, they could be very powerful.
[Continued directly below.]
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Homeowners' groups formed the
Mar Vista Community Council
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Planning in Palms was hit-and-miss; apartment dwellers hard to reach
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Westside Village was founded shortly before World War II when a large housing project was built by Fritz B. Burns on the bare hills to the north and west of Palms.
The Village consisted of 788 single-family homes, the first in the nation to be built assembly-line style. There were also apartments and commercial districts built.
A homeowners’ association staked out boundaries which, over the years. went beyond the original tract to include an older part of the Palms neighborhood (to the east of Palms Middle School).
This was the Westside Civic Assn., which does not allow renters, except for those of single-family homes, to become members.
It is this group that associated itself with several other homeowners’ groups on the west side of the I-405 San Diego Freeway to form the Mar Vista Community Council, which was certified as a neighborhood council by the city’s Board of Neighborhood Commissioners on August 13, 2002.
The Village homeowner told the association’s board on April 13 that the fledgling Palms Neighborhood Council holds monthly joint meetings with the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch [Web site here].
[Continued directly below.]
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2. WVCA was created in 1962 to oppose multiple applications (successfully) for high-rise developments and plans by the city to alter the residential character of the original Fritz Burns tract, which from the beginning included many non-Burns built homes. (We count 1100).
Historically some people saw WV as a cluster of expendable little boxes but WV residents were ready to fight for their modest homes.
3. At the time WVCA was created, the area to the east of Overland remained predominantly residential.
However, lacking [any] . . . George Garrigues, there was no public will to organize a HOA group to maintain the residential status or to negotiate an orderly transition to higher density.
Gradually the density grew, but without the infrastructure to support it. Planning was hit-and-miss.
4. Several times WVCA sought to involve apartment dwellers in projects, such as the original WVCA Neighborhood Watch formed in l980, disaster planning and CERT [Community Emergency Response Team] training.
But it was found that it is almost impossible to get the cooperation of managers to contact apartment dwellers. Religious organizations pay lip service to community projects but do little to involve their congregations.
[Continued directly below.]
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Neighborhood Watch includes Village
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Owners were on a first-name basis
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The Watch is a long-established organization in the Palms area, but it was not consulted before Westside Village was brought into the Mar Vista Community Council. There were 15 signators from Westside Village on the petition for Mar Vista certification, two of them from the same address.
The Palms Council/Watch, as it is sometimes known, has held monthly meetings featuring speakers like LAPD Chief William Bratton, the Village homeowner told the board, and it also usually hears from Anthony Vasquez, the LAPD senior lead officer for Westside Village and the rest of Palms.
The meetings are held at the Iman Center on Motor Ave.
The council/watch was responsible for keeping bicycle police in Westside Village and the rest of Palms after vandals painted swastikas on homes in the Village [story here].
[Continued directly below.]
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5. When MVCC was being organized, WVCA had already participated with many of the Mar Vista (and Westside HOAs to the north of the 10 freeway) on planning, CERT training, disaster preparedness and Santa Monica Airport issues.
People were on a first-name basis. The HOAs were well-organized, used to tackling projects and zoning-wise. They were one of the reasons that MVCC got organized before other NCs.
[Editor's note: Mar Vista was the 41st of the 81 councils certified so far in Los Angeles. It was the fourth on the Westside after Grass Roots Venice, Westside and South Robertson.]
6. The demographics of single-family home areas are different from multiple family residences. Homeowners’ values, commitments and willingness to volunteer time to work for a community are different than apartment dwellers. They are at different places in the usual life cycle.
(Incidentally, WVCA membership is open to people who rent single-family houses within the WVCA boundaries.)
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Some Villagers work with Palms and some with Mar Vista;
two Directors speak of cooperation with both areas
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The board of the Westside Village Civic Assn. decided not to accede to the homeowner’s April 13 request. Two of the board members, Holiday and Ken Alpern, are also directors of the Mar Vista Community Council.
Other Westside Villagers have taken a role in some MVCC committees, just as some Villagers have worked with the Palms Council/Watch on one project or another.
Jeane Parker, a longtime resident of the Village, was instrumental in bringing Chief Bratton to the Iman Center, his first visit to any neighborhood council.
Alpern was an active member of the Organizing Committee of the MVCC before it was certified. He has at several times made the suggestion that all of Mar Vista and all of Palms might join to form a large neighborhood council that could have more influence on the Westside, but each area has so far remained independent.
The homeowner’s presentation at the meeting “was well-done, and the atmosphere was cordial,” Alpern wrote in an e-mail to The Sun.
After the homeowner left, the discussion went forward and both sides of the argument were considered, Alpern said.
[Continued in Column 2 >>.]
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“We discussed Mar Vista's efforts, Palms' efforts, and learned from more than one source that the Palms Organizing Committee preferred to not have Westside Village be part of their N.C.,” Alpern wrote
(The Sun believes, however, that the members of the Palms Organizing Committee favor a merger with Westside Village if it could be accomplished without rancor, but there is no official stand. Most of the committee members favor moving ahead with certification in the remainder of the district that is not yet organized. The Sun’s editor is a member of that committee.)
Alpern added: “It was also felt that Westside Village would benefit from having not just one but two neighborhood councils in the region to represent our interests.”
In a telephone conversation with The Sun, Holiday supported that idea.
Alpern's e-mail continued: “The WVCA Board voted to reaffirm their commitment to staying with the MVCC but also voted to praise and support [Palms Chairman] Len Nguyen and the Palms Organizing Committee in their efforts to create their neighborhood council.”
[Continued in Column 1, below.]
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Palms without Westside Village is about 90% apartment dwellers
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Holiday was elected without opposition as the Village’s first Zone director on the MVCC Board. She was asked by The Sun before her nomination if she would consider joining Westside Village with Palms, but she said that “too much effort” had already been put into the Mar Vista Community Council.
Palms without Westside Village is 90% apartment dwellers, reaching from Sepulveda on the west to Robertson on the east. It is the oldest settlement on Los Angeles’ Westside, having been founded in 1886.
Westside Village has several thousand apartment dwellers and a large shopping district along Sepulveda Blvd., but none of the apartment people or business owners are allowed to join the Westside Village Civic Assn.
The homeowners making up the Civic Assn. live in houses ranging from premium on the Kingsland hilltop (up a vine-shrouded flight of steps from Rose Ave. north of Palms Middle School), to relatively modest in the old Palms area facing Charnock on the south. [See this map.]
The Commercial Corridors subcommittee of the Mar Vista council at one time considered placing
[Continued in Column 2 >>.]
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Officially, homeowners' associations have no more right than any other group of stakeholders to decide how neighborhood councils are to be bounded, but in practice the well-organized groups have generally been the leading organizers of the councils across the city.
That was the case in Mar Vista, but not in Palms, which is composed mostly of renters.
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“Mar Vista” signs at the outer boundaries of Westside Village (on Overland Ave.).
The idea, however, was dropped after the editor of The Sun (who is an apartment dweller in the Village) told the subcommittee that he and “most other people living in the area” do not consider it to be part of Mar Vista and didn’t want a sign nearby that made that claim.
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PETITIONS NOW TOTAL 200 NAMES
The last of petitions bearing the names of 200 people favoring the establishment of a a Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch were presented to the city's Board of Neighborhood Commissioners on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004, but drew no response from the commissioners.
George Garrigues, founder of an ad hoc organization called Stakeholders for a United Palms: Emergency Response (S-U-P-E-R) handed in the petitions at a board meeting at Daniel Webster Middle School in North Westdale. He made the following statement:
Sixty-three years ago, December 7, 1941, our country was attacked. Our right to petition our government for the redress of our grievances was theatened.
Today we and the descendants of those who attacked us live peacefully together on opposite shores of the Pacific Ocean, friends and not enemies, working together for our common goals.
Today I bring you what I hope will be the last of our petitions to redress a wrong that befell our little community of Westside Village on August 13, 2002.
That was the date you commissioners approved the Mar Vista Community Council, on the good-faith belief that you were certifying a “neighborhood” whose residents would applaud your action.
You were led astray.
Some call our community Westside Village, and others call it Northwest Palms, but one thing nobody has EVER called before it is “Mar Vista.” We want to join Palms and Westside Village together into a joint neighborhood council.
Among our two hundred petitioners you will find the names of 119 single-family residents (some of them renters), 58 apartment dwellers, and eighteen businesspeople or employees.
Commissioners, next week you will be asked to certify a Palms Neighborhood Council — without including Northwest Palms.
Palms is the first “suburb” of Los Angeles. It was founded in 1886.
When you certify the Palms council next week, Palms will have a new motto: “Born in 1886, Reborn in 2004.”
We in Westside Village want to be a part of that rebirth.
People like Ana Chalk, a condominium owner on Sepulveda; Rosalie M. Chung, who runs a little store on Palms Blvd.; Mike Hakim, an immigrant who installs carpet from his place on Overland, and his son, Bob, who is just starting his law practice from a little office attached to his dad’s business. People like Richard Markoe and Alice Pine, husband and wife, whose poor health has brought them — on welfare — to the Golden Manor retirement home on Overland.
There’s Eugene Lee and Lisa Lee and Min Lee, who live in two nearby houses on Midvale, and Jijin Li, who is in a house on Veteran.
There’s gruff old Walter W. Alschuler, who wrote on his petition: “It’s about time!”
On this Pearl Harbor Day anniversary, we ask you not just to RECEIVE our petition for a redress of our grievance, but to also DO something about it:
We are ready to assist you and your staff in your important work and to bring about a treaty of peace and separation between us and Mar Vista.
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WIDESPREAD SUPPORT
Red figures on the map show where the 200+ signers either live or work.
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COMMISSIONERS HEAR BOTH SIDES OF THE MAR VISTA LAND GRAB
Marie Wallace of the Westside Village Civic Assn. displays a zoning map at a meeting of the L.A. City Board of Neighborhood Commissioners on Dec. 14, 2004, to illustrate her contention that Westside Village should remain linked with Mar Vista because, she said, both areas are predominantly single-family residences. (Actually, both areas are dominated in population by apartment dwellers — by a 70-30 ratio.)
The occasion was the Palms Neighborhood Council certification hearing at the Iman Center in Palms.
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Westside Village resident Ken Alpern displays a STOP MAR VISTA poster he said was posted illegally. Eloy (Rod) Rodriguez of the Palms Community Council listens.
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Jim Kellogg of Greenfield Ave. in Westside Village told the commissioners he wanted a combined Palms-WV Neighborhood Council. So did his wife, Bonnie.
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RACIAL COMPOSITION OF PALMS AND MAR VISTA
Does this gerrymander result in an 'apartment ghetto'?
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$500 CARD TABLES YIELD MIXED MESSAGES
Ken Alpern, a director of both the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) and the Westside Village Civic Assn., a homeowners' group, works an information table (below) at a Westside Village community fair on Oct. 2, 2004. Information about the MVCC and the civic assn. were mingled on the tables.
Adjoining tables, manned by MVCC Vice Chair Rob Kadota, featured safety and security information. Kadota said he did not know why the venerable Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch, which is helping to form a Palms Neighborhood Council, had not been invited to take part in the Westside Village presentation.
Homeowner members, police and firemen got a free lunch, but renters and other nonmembers had to pay $10 each. Apartment dwellers, even condominium owners, are not allowed to join the civic assn.
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The Board of the Mar Vista Community Council has asked taxpayers to fork over $500 for the afternoon fiesta.
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 The brochures on this table are, from left to right, the fall 2004 MVCC newsletter (taxpayer paid), agenda for fall quarterly Stakeholders' meeting (taxpayer paid), book sale announcement for Palms-Rancho Park Library, "Welcome new neighbor to the friendliest neighborhood on the Westside" brochure from the Westside Village Civic Assn. (apartment dwellers need not apply), map and two-page leaflet publicizing the MVCC (taxpayer paid), flier headlined "WESTSIDE VILLAGE CIVIC ASSOCIATION AND THE MAR VISTA COMMUNITY COUNCIL" (see below) and a door hangar to use after an earthquake, courtesy of the homeowners' group.
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A separate appropriation of $500 was made by the MVCC Board for a bicycle rodeo held earlier in the day at the same location.
Nineteen neighborhood children showed up to claim 20 free bicycles!
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The Sun's editor is challenging the total allocation of $1,000 of taxpayers' money for the Westside Village activities as an illegal gift of public funds.
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MVCC ADMITS WESTSIDE VILLAGE IS 'NOT WITHIN' THE TRADITIONAL MAR VISTA BOUNDARIES
Disregards City Charter
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In October 2004 the Mar Vista Community Council, in a document emblazoned with its official seal, attempted to explain why Westside Village is a part of the Mar Vista Community Council.
The Community Council said in a brochure distributed at a community fair sponsored by the Westside Village Civic Assn.:
 "Westside Village is not within the traditional boundaries of Mar Vista, but is an adjacent neighborhood with many residential and geographic similarities to Mar Vista."
Sorry, but that's not how neighborhood councils are supposed to be set up. The City Charter plainly states:
 The system for determining boundaries shall maintain neighborhood boundaries to the maximum extent feasible.
And the ordinance providing for the neighborhood councils requires that:
The proposed area, to the maximum extent feasible, follows historic and contemporary community and neighborhood borders, utilizes natural boundaries or street lines and is geographically compact and contiguous.
The MVCC admission follows an officially approved statement by the MVCC in July 2004 that Mar Vista is a "quiet West L.A. mostly bedroom community west of the 405 and south of the 10.
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CIVIC ASSN. DOESN'T DO ANY BETTER IN EXPLAINING HOW IT FORCED THE VILLAGE INTO THE MAR VISTA COUNCIL
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 A flier distributed at the October 2004 community fair by the Westside Village Civic Assn. explained why the assn. decided "to join with the Mar Vista Community Council."
The flier stated:
"After lengthy public debate, WVCA voted to join MVCC because it has so much in common with the predominantly residential and hilly character within the MVCC boundaries. . . . Homeowner associations like WVCA, Mar Vista, Westdale, North Westdale and Hilltop continue to be the predominant voice in MVCC activities because those groups are familar with local issues and are comfortable in taking on civic responsibilities."
The flier also asked rhetorically: "There is also a Palms Neighborhood Council, and why didn't the WVCA join it?"
It answered its own question as follows:
"The Palms Neighborhood Council has been organized only recently and will hopefully soon be certified by the City. During our debate regarding participation in the MVCC prior to 2002, the common thread of homeownership as described above was integral in the decision process."
"Few apartment dwellers in Westside Village have come to meetings or have participated in MVCC activities, despite being invited to participate. Homeowners, renters and businesses commonly have very different issues. . . ."
But city-certified neighborhood councils are designed to bring together all the voices of the community in search of common issues and friendly ways to resolve whatever "different issues" might exist.
The City Charter says:
"Neighborhood councils shall include representatives of the many diverse interests in communities."
And the city's Plan for a Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils states:
"Neighborhood Councils shall be diverse, inclusive and open to all stakeholders of the community" and shall "foster a sense of community for all people. . . ."
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PATRONIZE S-U-P-E-R BUSINESSES
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People at the following businesses have signed the S-U-P-E-R petition to form a Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council:
South of Woodbine Avenue
Sterling Cleaners, 3403 Overland Ave.
Blue Ribbon Coin Laundry, 3405 Overland Ave.
Bob Hakim, attorney, 3415 Overland Ave.
Mike's Carpet, 3415 Overland Ave.
Lighting Glass Sales, 3435 Overland Ave.
AHS Compounding Pharmacy, 3463 Overland Ave.
Overland Veterinary Hospital, 3456 Overland Ave.
South of Palms Boulevard
Cheviot Hills Golden Manor Rest Home, 3535 Overland Ave.
Jams Auto, 3549 Overland Ave.
Overland Smog Center, 3573 Overland Ave.
Sky Computer Services, 3577 Overland Ave.
At Sepulveda and Palms
House of Living Water, 11117 Palms Blvd.
Crest Cleaners, 11119 Palms Blvd.
Dental office, 11144 Palms Blvd.
Royal Donuts, 11138 Palms Blvd.
Danish Dry Cleaners, 11122 Palms Blvd.
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Strong and United to Protect Everyone's Rights
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