Park(ing) Day LA highlights need for parks and parks services

Los Angeles is notorious for adding new park facilities without adding requisite funding for their upkeep. The practice has been so prevalent over the decades that the Department of Recreation and Parks finds themselves constantly scrambling to provide a minimum amount of service. Some facilities are practically abandoned by the department out of necessity, while services go disproportionately to others where the mayor and councilmembers make the most noise.

The Wayists of Griffith Park introduce the idea of a City Charter amendment to make certain that every new park that is added in Los Angeles also has the needed maintenance and services budget automatically added to the department.

This is an idea worth discussing.

From Stephen Box at Soapbox LA via an excellent Griffith Park blog, Griffith Park Wayist:
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When you add up all the park land in town, Los Angeles turns out to be the most park-poor large city in the United States. If you remove Griffith Park from the total, you basically cut the total park acreage in Los Angeles by HALF.

Park(ing) Day LA is one way to draw attention to this issue. It should be pointed out, though, that simply adding park land is not the answer to Los Angeles's problems. With each new acre of park land added, there MUST be funding and positions added to the Department of Recreation and Parks' budget for maintenance, programming, and public safety/park rangers.

The addition of the means to care and service new park land should be required, and a City Charter amendment may be needed to see that the citizens of Los Angeles get the sustainable parks and the true social justice they deserve.

Park(ing) Day LA is September 18, 2009

-GPW


Park(ing) Day LA: A Cry for Parks and Public Space
By Stephen Box (SoapboxLA)

Park[ing] Day LA is underway and activists, artists, urban planners and neighborhood councils are preparing to step up to the curb, place a quarter in the meter and then transform curbside park[ing] space into temporary parks, all in an effort to stir a dialogue on public space.

The East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, holding the title of park-poorest NC in the city, will be [re]claiming public space and building a Recreation Center on Heliotrope, installing a swimming pool, grilling up food on a bbq, entertaining guests with music and volleyball, creating live art and challenging the community to imagine a neighborhood with ... brace yourself...parks within walking distance of the people!

Organized by Alfredo "the Park Czar" Hernandez, the East Hollywood NC is planning a demonstration of Parkland Alchemy as the "temporary" park is transformed, the next day, into a permanent park within the NC boundaries.

LA Guerrilla Garden[ing] will be taking all of the drought resistant native plants used on Park[ing] Day and will build a small park for the community as a demonstration of the "leave things better than you found them" commitment of the Park[ing] Day LA grass roots movement.

LA's Greensters will be handling all the heavy-lifting needs for the East Hollywood transformation from temporary park to permanent park, utilizing Xtracycles, trailers and wagons in a pedal-powered display of sustainable transportation and as a demonstration of fact that LA is simply a great place to ride a bike!

Recycled Movie, the production company that turns kids into movie moguls, will have their recycling trailer on site throughout the event and will be documenting Park[ing] Day LA while fulfilling their mandate to make recycling a routine activity that puts kids to work and also funds their filmmaking endeavors.

Park[ing] Day originated in San Francisco in 2005 when (Re)Bar, a small group of artists, opened eyes worldwide by transforming a metered park[ing] spot into a park-for-a-day. That simple act served as a significant commentary on the lack of quality open space in American cities and resulted in Park[ing] Day celebrations around the world. This is the third annual Park[ing] Day LA and participants have engaged their communities with a wide variety of parks and public space perspectives, all of them challenging the status quo.

The EHNC Park[ing] Day LA activities are designed to engage the community, stir a dialogue, provide a venue for a celebration and to simply "change the world!" This ambitious and visionary project is a clear demonstration that the future of LA's open space requires us all to ...Step up to the curb, look at all of that public space and ask "Why not?"

For more information on Park[ing] Day LA visit http://parkingdayla.com/.

Open Thread for Wednesday

You guessed it - still too much work and no Mayor Sam.

Some suggested topics for today's open thread :

Nuch's tantalizing hint at a criminal case involving the City's expenses for MJ's memorial.

Signature gathering for CD2 race.

Someone wants to give Walter Moore a radio talk show.

Great idea! French workers "bossnap", threaten to set off bombs in their own workplace

Los Angeles City parks need an exemption to water restrictions or taxpayers will be stuck paying to rebuild lost play fields, golf greens, etc.

City Clowncil today debates restricting public comment and new penalties for what they feel is abuse of the privilage.

new City of Oakland to tax marijuana shops. LA next?


Blog away, dum dums.



(From RonKayeLA.com via YouTube)

LAFD Fiddles While LeBong, SAG, RAP Commission Burns Firefighters' Memory

We've already reported the lengths to which T-LeBong and his Performing Ego would go just for a press op. Even "revisionist history" isn't beneath the Autocrat of Griffith Park in his rabid desire for a little camera time.

What's truly amazing is that the LAFD are just sitting on their collective hands while LeBong and the Rec and Parks Commission conspire to kiss some SAG administrator's gi-normous derriere on this one. The death of 29 men in just 20 minutes during the horrific 1933 Griffith Park firestorm is the worst loss of firefighters in California State history. (correction: ...in American history.) Until now, the LAFD had been tireless stewards of the memory of these men. Men whose memory has been included in the LAFD's annual Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service which, ironically, takes place this Saturday.

When even the LAFD can't be trusted to look out after their own history, the designation of Griffith Park as a Historic Monument is an idea whose time has definitely come. --


From SaveGriffithPark.org :

GRIFFITH PARK'S DEPRESSION DEAD TO BE DISHONORED.
WHAT WOULD PAUL NEWMAN THINK?

An eerie episode is unfolding behind the scenes that in its own perverse way reinforces the necessity of obtaining Historic-Cultural Monument status for Griffith Park.

At its meeting of October 3, 2008 – the 75th Anniversary of the catastrophic Fire of 1933 in Griffith Park that killed 29 men laboring for subsistence wages in the worst year of the Depression – the Board of Commissioners of the Recreation and Parks Department was asked to approve the installation of a monument to the tragedy in the Mineral Wells area of Griffith Park. The proposed plaque commemorating the event will not honor the men who were burned alive – it will honor the Screen Actors Guild.

Worth reading is the attached report to the Rec & Parks Board which employs semantic juxtaposition to link a pivotal SAG organizational meeting that took place the evening of the fire with Warner Bros Studios' loan of klieg lights to rescuers to light the search for victims. Students of labor movement and motion picture history will know that in 1933 anti-union film moguls and SAG existed in separate, adversarial worlds. The lights were not lent because of SAG. There is no evidence that the union's members fought the fire. There is no evidence that SAG sent aid to victims and their survivors at all, much less to any degree that would warrant their bring singled out for recognition.

Nevertheless, SAG was founded in June 1933, so this year marks its 75th Anniversary, too. While these separate but coincidental anniversaries are enough of an historical relationship for Councilmember LaBonge to conceive this photo op, should it be reason enough for a well-respected union like SAG to participate in trivializing dead workers? Save Griffith Park doubts that SAG's dues-paying members are knowing participants in this empty honor. Classy SAG member and philanthropist Paul Newman once declined a national medal he actually deserved calling the recognition "honorrhea." How would he describe this ghoulish episode?

Public support for Historic Cultural Landmark status for Griffith Park will help end Orwellian rewrites of our local history. Encourage people who support this long overdue designation to let the Cultural Heritage Commission know by sending a letter to:

Cultural Heritage Commission
Office of Historic Resources
L.A. Department of City Planning
200 N. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

National Park(ing) Day Spotlights Park-Poor L.A.

This Friday is National Park(ing) Day.

Sponsored by the Trust for Public Land, Park(ing) Day is an opportunity to celebrate parks in cities and promote the need for more parks by creating temporary public parks in public parking spaces. More than 400 temporary parks in 70 different cities are expected to appear in a parking space near you.

Park(ing) Day is a superficially apt name considering the amount of time Angeleos spend parked on LA freeways. However, the juxtaposition of 'urban parking lots' and 'green space parks' cuts a great deal deeper. According to data from USC's Green Visions Plan study, the poorer parts of Los Angeles are some of the most park-poor in the US. They're severely lacking smaller, quality neighborhood parks and passive recreation opportunities that a RAND Corporation study found to be heavily preferred by most Angelenos, regardless of race and economic factors.

The Department of Recreation and Parks was in the public input stage of a much-needed citywide Needs Assessment process to address this dearth of green space when they were broadsided by the Mayor and City Clowncil -- RAP was slapped with the highest budget cut of any department in the City (17%). For the last two years, Rec and Parks had been recovering from nearly two decades of being gutted by politicians and poor management. This latest cut clearly spotlights the Mayor's and City Clowncil's utter disrespect for the need of all Angelenos to recreate and relax.

In fact, each year in recent memory, the Mayor hasn't just cut Rec and Parks' budget, but has placed it on more and more unstable footing by increasing the percentage that comes directly from the General Fund. For 2008-09, Mayor Villar felt that no one would notice if he put roughly 80% of Rec and Parks' funding -- an all-time high -- at serious risk by forcing it to rely on the health of the General Fund.

Since the General Fund relies on City sales and property taxes which are substantially lower now during this economic downturn, it's likely that the 17% cut will end up far deeper in reality .


So just how many Los Angeles Park(ing) Day parking lot parks will be drawing attention to the criminal lack of parks, park space, and parks funding in Los Angeles? Go to Parking Day LA's web site to find out or to register your "park" and help bring attention to Los Angeles's parks issues.

LeBong in Secret Meeting: "Oppose Griffith Park Historic Designation!"

The Autocrat of Griffith Park is at it again. Recently calling all General Managers in this City to a secret meeting at his office, LeBong then ordered all their respective departments to oppose the Historic Designation application for Griffith Park.

The Historic Designation application was filed by the Griffith Trust, a family foundation run by Van Griffith, the great-grandson of the man who created Griffith Park and donated the land to the City, Griffith J. Griffith. The application is in direct response to the continued carving up of the park by LeBong for development by his personal friends and donors, and to the violence which he sometimes responds with when questioned by his constituents.

While away in Germany ostensibly on City business yet again, through his sock puppet proxy, Rory Calhoun, LeBong told all the GMs that the application was filed because the community has no confidence in the Department of Rec and Parks. The reality is that the public is completely fed up with LeBong continually concocting schemes for handing over chunks of the park to his buddies, big money donors like the Autry and prominent members of the Korean business community, to name just a few.

Actions by LeBong make it pretty clear that the Clowncilman thinks Griffith Park is his personal backyard. He completely rewrote the version of the Griffith Park Master plan that the community opposes so strongly in the image of Disneyland, complete with a pleasure pier, two funiculars (cable cars) -- one from the Observatory to Mt. Hollywood and one from Mineral Wells to the top of Toyon Landfill -- multilevel parking structures, and new baseball fields on top of the landfill when current closure plans for the landfill call for its restoration to natural habitat.

LeBong also recently promised his Korean financial supporters that they could take a substantial chunk of natural habitat and create "Busan Point" -- a Korean garden of their own design and use. Bypassing official processes and Rec and Parks approval, LeBong often orders or pushes around Rec and Parks employees to build or bulldoze whatever his whim is at the moment. It could be a monument to George Harrison 'here' or a tree for victims of the 1933 Griffith Park fire 'there'. But in the case of 'there', the tree is actually no where near the location where the victims fell, but instead at a location that allowed LeBong to have the absolute biggest press conference possible. It seems that the Clowncilman's sense of propriety with regards to Griffith Park is what the public, and the Griffith family itself, is tired of fighting.

It's worth noting that the "Busan" in LeBong's "Busan Point" promise is one of the Sister Cities of Los Angeles. Contrary to popular belief, the Los Angeles Sister Cities program is not a City program. It's run by a private foundation funded by some of the biggest financial movers and shakers in Los Angeles, including the powerful Korean business community. LeBong has already built the "Berlin Forest" in Griffith Park for yet another Sister City. At last check, there were 27 Sister Cities of Los Angeles, and the number continues to grow as more ethnically linked members of Los Angeles' business community jump in the game. If left unchecked by such efforts as the Historic Designation proposal, LeBong will be handing out chunks of Griffith Park to all of them.

Questions Still Swirl Around Griffith Fire

Tomorrow is the 1-year anniversary of the devastating Griffith Park fire. One of the largest fires in the long history of a historic park is rumored to have been started by an off-duty Camp LeJeune marine who fell asleep with a cigarette in hand sometime in the early afternoon. One year on, no one has ever been charged with starting the fire, and details about this individual and why they were in the park in the first place are limited. In fact, in reviewing the fire and the resulting goings-on since that fateful afternoon, there are still a whole lot of questions that remain unanswered.

To mark the historic occasion, it probably goes without saying that the Autocrat of Griffith Park will be holding court. Tom LeBong and his ongoing obsession with the LAFD takes over the Greek Theatre parking area at 10AM Thursday so he can ask everyone on City time about the high school they attended. Various City officials will be forced to make appearances. Rec and Parks General Manager Jon Mukri is one of the lucky ones performing at the Autocrat’s bidding tomorrow instead of running his department.

Hey Jon M,

Q: While Griffith Park was under full closure post-fire, why was Sunset Stables allowed to conduct business in the park while other rental stables surrounding the park were banned?

Q: Why wasn't the investigation of such a high profile fire handled by LAFD or LAPD instead of the Office of Public Safety?


Along with LAFD Chief Barry, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be there to honor the dedicated firefighters who worked the blaze. This includes the Los Angeles City Park Rangers whose unit the Mayor already showed his appreciation for by slashing them in half with a swipe of his pen a few weeks ago.

Hey Tony,

Q: What happened to your promise of a fully staffed and equipped Park Ranger Division?

Q: Why did you make Recreation and Parks pay millions of dollars from their budget toward the cost of fire recovery when the funds should have come from the City's emergency contingency account?


Obviously missing from tomorrow's festivities will be our exalted Governator whose caring concern for the disaster graced the front pages of every fishwrap in town.

Q: Hey Arnie, what happened to that $50 million you promised Recreation and Parks? Wouldn’t this have made a huge difference in Rec and Parks' financial situation now?


And finally -

Hey Councilman LeBong,

Q: Why were you regularly leading private parties off-trail in the environmentally sensitive burn areas when the areas were closed?

Q: Why was a single exclusive group of some of your biggest financial supporters given the honor of being the first ‘community group’ to help restore Griffith Park and why was it kept secret from the public until after the fact?

Q: Why did you tell anyone who would listen that 'hydromulch doesn’t work' when six decades of good data shows otherwise?

Q: Why did you push for a curb-to-curb smoking ban in tinder-dry Los Angeles parks, then undermine the law at the 12th hour by making exceptions of golf courses and events venues like the Greek Theatre?

Q: Why are you holding ‘Park Restoration’ community group events that plant tree after tree after tree in a Chaparral - not Forest - ecosystem?

Q: Why have your groups been allowed to plant non-natives in a native ecosystem?

Q: Why are your aides telling members of the public things like ‘wild cucumber is invasive and needs to be ripped out from the burn area’? (Wild cucumber is decidedly native.)

Q: Why are you pushing for yet another non-native, manufactured artificial ‘garden’ to be named in honor of one of Los Angeles’ 20-plus “Sister Cities” to be built in the natural wilderness portion of the burn area and that will be preferentially managed by more of your big financial supporters?

So many questions, so few answers.

How about $7,334,470?

In December 2004, the LA City Council voted to create the Office of Public Safety which consolidated a large number of public safety positions outside the LAPD in to one unit. This was pushed as a budget savings move which, in analysis by the CAO, could save Los Angeles between $200,000 and $900,000 annually.

In February 2008, councilites Greuel and Weiss issued a press release praising the increase in services and the amazing financial savings the creation of OPS has brought the City. (Whoohoo! Save us money!) Simultaneously, stating that they need more funding to do the job they promised to do in 2005 at an annual savings to the City, OPS has requested 2008-09 funding increases of: $2,480,000 + $911,000 + $1,000,000 + $1,532,000 + $25,000 + $1,386,470 = ... (drumroll) ... $7,334,470

Oops!


OPS was created using a ****load of Homeland Security funding with the noble ideal of somehow saving the City money while simultaneously transforming the City’s General Services Department Police into a one-size-does-fit-all solution to law enforcement issues not handled by LAPD in Los Angeles.

This money-saving consolidation caused huge upheavals in a number of the affected City Departments: Zoo, Recreation and Parks, Libraries, General Services, Convention Center all saw a large numbers of employees move to a new department along with the responsibility of some of the most fundamental services they provide. Today these departments continue to be responsible for making sure the services are provided to their respective public patrons, even though these services are now out of their control.

Devised by James Hahn and Wendy Greuel, the plan was shoved shamelessly through by SEIU who was pushing their 'one City, one workforce' mandate (shades of “one size fits all”) and who wanted control of a second police force that was unencumbered by the consent decree and the large number of paying union members that came along with the package.

In a yearlong series of public dog and pony shows, SEIU promised the public that the same services would be provided by OPS as were previously provided by Zoo security, Park Rangers, Library security officers, and GSD Police and Security at public buildings, plus a huge increase in the strictly public safety component. However, the statistics upon which these promises were made were incorrect by anywhere from 33% to 1000%, and SEIU and OPS knew it. Oops!

Regardless, on February 9th, 2005, OPS took over security at more than 800 City locations. And how is that going, so far?

As happened at a Feb 17, 2008 Elysian Park Public Safety forum hosted by Ed Reyes, LA City parks patrons -- those who are either not afraid of political ramifications or not afraid to lose their City-related jobs -- will tell you that not only are the same services not being provided by OPS, but previous service levels that used to be provided by a perpetually underfunded and understaffed Park Ranger division are not even being maintained. The promised “24 hour security coverage” holy grail might exist on paper, but good luck getting a response if the call isn't sexy enough for OPS to respond. Half the time they don’t even have a car in the area, which is exactly one of the main issues SEIU promised the public to correct with OPS. As for that CD 1 Elysian Park Public Safety forum? With concerned members of the public, Council Office and Rec and Parks officials and Park Rangers waiting, OPS arrived 90 minutes late. ...Oops.

Other agencies' public patrons have similar complaints. The Library Commission actually had the political gonads to vote against supporting the Consolidation, and their concerns have proved well-founded. In early 2007, KCBS did an indepth investigation on the huge increase in crime at LA City libraries, the very libraries whose security was taken over by OPS in 2005. In defending the rapidly growing money pit and bureaucratic nightmare, OPS Chief Garry Newton complained that his department was getting more calls that their faulty statistics said they would. He also stated that crime was actually down in City Libraries, but had no data to support the claim. Oops!

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math. $7,334,470 in additional funding is far greater than a maximum of $900,000 in savings, and this doesn’t included the major funding increases OPS has received using different excuses at different times in 2005, 2006, and 2007. The so-called savings are long a thing of the past. Yet, services to City patrons are no better in most cases, and worse in many cases.

Th OPS Consolidation is a very complex beast and Union and City officials are on notice to be team players about supporting this pet project; publicly they make a united front on the wonders of OPS-ness. But for the public, it comes down to this: OPS does not provide the same services as were previous provided and it does not save the City any money -- it actually costs a great deal more. Meanwhile, OPS has absorbed all of the Homeland Security resources and funding that may have gone to agencies like Zoo and Library Security forces and the Park Rangers who actually did provide the services in question as possible on the thinnest of fractions of the funding the OPS behemoth currently consumes. Now during the City budget crunch, OPS wants more. A lot more.


----------------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
Ben Golombek - Greuel
February 6th, 2008 (213)
473-7002

Lisa Hansen - Weiss

(213) 473-7005 Greuel, weiss OFFICE OF PUBLIC SAFETY has improved security and saved city money OFFICE OF PUBLIC SAFETY'S CITIZEN OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE EXTENDED

LOS ANGELES - Continuing their efforts to improve public safety and save taxpayer money, City Councilmembers Wendy Greuel and Jack Weiss, today, led the Los Angeles City Council in extending the Citizen Oversight Committee for the City's Office of Public Safety (OPS) for an additional two years. In December 2005, Councilmembers Greuel and Weiss led the City Council in creating the Office of Public Safety, which consolidated security divisions from City Departments, outside of the Los Angeles Police Department.

"The Office of Public Safety has helped to save the City money and make Los Angeles safer," said Councilwoman Greuel. "We have more security in our parks and at our City facilities with improved response times. Now more than ever, the city must address its economic inefficiencies and streamline the way it does business."

Because of the creation of OPS, City security forces now have the ability to respond to incidents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a result, OPS has been able to respond to 131% more calls than the Departments collectively could before the consolidation. The creation of the OPS has helped to save the City money by reducing bureaucracy and duplicative administrative roles.

"The collaboration of the City's public safety departments has been beneficial to maximize limited resources and expertise," said Councilmember Jack Weiss. "Continuing the oversight of the Office of Public Safety will ensure that this office delivers on its promise of efficiency in City services."

The consolidation has also helped enhance security at City facilities -- improving access control, monitoring systems, quality control for contract security, improved policies, procedures and training.

The OPS includes officers that were formerly part of the Departments of General Services, Library, Zoo, Recreation and Parks, El Pueblo and Convention Center.

# # #

Saturday morning "Breakfast Bits" from the "RED SPOT INSTITUTE"

Good Saturday morning from the Institute high above the "BLUE SEA" of government junkies in CD 14. For your viewing pleasure, we give you this lovely shot of Elephant Hill in "PUEBLO DE SERENO".

It seems that the "MIXING" of a full moon, alcohol, computer keyboard and a lurking "SANCHO" has someone spilling their "BROKEN HEART". This makes for "BLOGGIN GOOD ENTERTAINMENT". So let this be the "DR. PHIL THREAD OF THERAPY".

On to the news.

DOWNTOWN NEWS ONLINE:

Always fun to watch a "WEEKLY LOCAL FISHWRAP" out report the "OLD GREY HAG ON SPRING STREET". The Downtown weekly continues its reporting on the fiasco that is the Rec. and Park Quimby Fund. This week, Rec. and Parks admits that land they were looking at for park space is no longer available.

http://www.downtownnews.com/articles/2007/10/29/news/news03.txt

DAILY NEWS:

City Councilwoman Janice Hahn will not give up her dream of "TAXING OUT THE GANG PROBLEM". She will place her "PARCEL TAX" on the November 2008 ballot. Meanwhile, we have a sighting of the "GENERAL SECRETARY OF GANG INTERVENTION", the Rev. Carr.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7294556

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

What will be the final resolution to the Elephant Hill affair ?? It seems that El Sereno is always a fertile area for thought, and quite diverse at that. Blog away, enjoy your Bruin win and the demise of the Trojans.

****Trojans Burst Under Pressure**** Oregon 24, S.C.C.C 17

****Bruins are ruin, UCLA 7, Washington St. 27****