The following is an open letter from the Board of the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club to Mayor Karen Bass, City Councilmember Traci Park, Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna and Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore that has been reprinted here with permission.
In our council district on January 3, 2023, a group of Los Angeles Police Department officers immobilized and pinned a 31-year-old father and high school English teacher named Keenan Anderson after a hit-and-run incident. Claiming Anderson resisted efforts to detain him, officers administered six 50,000-volt Taser shocks. Anderson was evacuated from the scene unconscious and died in custody at a local hospital.
LAPD policy states that officers “may use the Taser as a reasonable force option to control a suspect when the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or others.” By all available evidence Anderson’s actions do not appear to meet that standard.
“The gaps between pulses were so brief that [Anderson] could get out only a few words—including ‘Help me, please’—as he repeatedly cried out in agony,” as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
We need to name this for what it appears to be: an unwarranted and excessive use of force by LAPD officers, which led to an unnecessary tragedy.
The police work for all of us. We need officers who will demonstrate nonviolence and good neighborliness. When the community lacks confidence in police officers’ calm professionalism, it is an emergency of the most urgent sort.
We request that Mayor Bass, the City Council, the Board of Supervisors, the County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Police Department immediately take all steps needed to ensure that the police employ patience and de-escalation, exemplifying nonviolence to our whole city. Specifically, we request that law enforcement adhere to proper procedures when employing potentially lethal or debilitating force. We further ask that each of you participate in public meetings before community councils or other local organizations over the next three months to report on your progress and field questions.
Pacific Palisades Democratic Club Board
At the last Pacific Palisades Community Council meeting, a few important things happened and I want to tell you about them.
First, we formed the Potrero Park Oversight Committee to streamline communications with city and state agencies, monitor ongoing issues, and ensure they’re attended to. The committee will discuss issues such as signage and usage guidelines, make sure public safety is maintained, and open collaborative lines of communication with stakeholders and resources that maintain and manage the park.
This committee will be advisory to the PPCC, where their recommendations will be agenized, discussed and, as needed, brought to consensus with a vote. The committee will also invite and/or welcome the advice of others. Community members always have a place at PPCC, and their input on all matters, including Potrero, is welcome at the PPOC.
We also expected to hear a presentation from LADWP, focused on the Marquez Avenue substation proposal, which was the subject of a scoping meeting the week prior. LADWP had announced that they were embarking on an environmental study and would be listening to comments from the community.
While they would not be responding to substantive questions at either the scoping meeting or at PPCC, they assured us that they would take all comments (submitted to their online portal, spoken at the scoping meeting or uttered by board members at the PPCC meeting) into account. This seemed fair and although it was all was confirmed hours before the meeting, they announced at the meeting there that there would be no presentation.
Katherine Rubin, their director of environmental affairs, told us: “We really acknowledge everything that you have told us … safety is important to us and we hear your concerns … but we have a grid reliability issue here in the Palisades community … and we will need a DS Station. So … we’re going to model our options again…. and we’d like to come back to you with several options … and work with you as a community and then move forward with a project. So for tonight, we are not going to move forward with the presentation as planned.”
It took me a minute to process that they were informing the community, in real time, that they were not going forward with the environmental study for the Marquez location and that they are going back to the drawing board, and will come to the community at a later date with options.
I allowed board members to speak and let their comments be part of the record as planned. I also allowed community members to make their comments. The PPCC is, by its mission, a forum for the discussion of community issues, and that was exactly what we offered on Thursday.
In the end, I am happy to report that LADWP is going to “remodel” options for a substation in the Palisades, and come back to the community with suggestions, alongside a pledge to work together before moving forward with a project. My hope is that this will lead to a collaborative outcome, which will not fracture the community, but enable consensus.
Maryam Zar
PPCC Chair
Never has the community been so divided over an issue as the location of DS-104, the power distribution station proposed by LADWP.
In 2012, much energy was spent in both city staff time and taxpayer money as well as local volunteer involvement to find a proper site. Councilman Bill Rosendahl formed the DS-104 Task Force in cooperation with DWP, and eventually 18 local community leaders analyzed 18 sites proposed by either DWP engineers or Task Force members.
In the end, the site evaluations and recommendations were surprisingly unanimous. The Marquez site was ranked last and given an “F.” DWP failed to accept alternate sites and began to build pole top transformers, ugly as they may be.
I am dismayed that DWP has forgotten its troubled history of site selections after a revolving door of general managers and is prepared to move DS-104 to the Marquez site again. This fuels the same divisive energy that took years to settle down in the Palisades. Our community is the pristine and safe neighborhood because residents care for its quality of life and the health of their children, and they will not back down in their objections to the Marquez site.
The Marquez site, owned by DWP, was never its first choice. That was the land behind Los Angeles Fire Department Station 23. Marquez has always had the strongest objecting voices from hundreds of community members.
A survey of Palisadians found that the location at Station 23 was considered “a no brainer.” At the same time, DWP’s consultant concluded that the site next door to Marquez school was fatally flawed with “Grade F” for geology, for being on an “existing landslide” and “regarded as likely unstable,” resulting in “a likely significant and unavoidable [environmental] impact.”
Only two years after that statement LAUSD demolished an adjacent school building with 10 classrooms, which had become damaged by geologic instability on that same canyon. LAUSD also upheld its position that prohibits construction of a distribution station next to any of its schools.
What is a power distribution station?
It does not produce power.
It does not in itself fix chronic power failures in Pacific Palisades.
It is a “forest” of transformers, each similar to what we see at the corner of Sunset and Temescal Canyon. These transformers are the first step to reduce (or transform) the incoming voltage of the 56,000 volt (56 KV) from the main power line that runs under Sunset Boulevard. The power that eventually reaches your homes is at a safe 120V.
What will DS-104 look like?
DWP has never provided specifications or drawings of the proposed facility, not 10 years ago and not now. During early discussions around 2010 DWP said that the facility on Marquez would be 17 feet below grade (street level) and 17 feet above grade. A DWP engineer stated then that “water and power don’t mix,” and with a smile added that there was too much water in the Marquez Canyon to place the facility low and down into the canyon. During later Task Force meetings DWP stated that they would need at least one acre of land on a flat surface, and 1.5 acres on hillsides with minimal slope.
To give a visual reference: Two DWP proposed sites, which the Task Force rejected, were the entire business district on Marquez Avenue plus the alley and four adjacent homes, or 90% of the level property of the business district on lower Palisades Drive. DS-104 will be massive.
On Christmas Day 2022, several DS sites in Tacoma, Washington, were vandalized causing severe damage and a fire. Weeks earlier, other attacks in Oregon and North and South Carolina caused severe damage amid federal warnings of extremist threats to electricity infrastructure.
CNN reported that hundreds of DS sites suffer explosions annually. Smaller facilities are mostly without adequate physical protection, on-site security staff or 24/7 monitoring for cost reasons. Remote monitoring, which is currently proposed for DS-104, does little to protect from vandalism or attacks.
This leaves DSes such as DS-104 extremely vulnerable. The Marquez site is located in the “Highest Fire Hazard Severity Zone” as designated by the fire department. Any fire in Marquez Canyon not only endangers Marquez Knolls and surrounding areas, but the entire Palisades. Furthermore, a site subject to “extremist threats” does not belong in a location next to a school.
Haldis Toppel
President, Marquez Knolls Homeowner’s Association
Area 3 Representative, Pacific Palisades Community Council Member,
Bill Rosendahl’s DS104 Task Force, retired
Information System Manager, ITA, City of Los Angeles, retired
The Palisadian-Post accepts letters to the editor via email at mypost@palipost.com or mail/hand-delivered at 881 Alma Real Drive, Suite 213, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. To be considered for publication, letters must be signed, and are subject to editing for length and clarity. Opinions expressed in letters do not necessarily reflect the views of opinions of the Palisadian-Post.
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