Mayors United

Honorary Co-Mayors Janice and Billy Crystal and the effective mayor of Pacific Palisades should get together …

All joking aside, we have something similar to a city council and a mayor right here in the Palisades. The Pacific Palisades Community Council is a volunteer board, made up of elected representatives from all Palisadian neighborhoods (Castellammare, The Highlands, Marquez Knolls, El Medio Bluffs, Alphabet Streets, The Huntington and Via Bluffs, Rustic Canyon/Santa Monica Canyon, The Riviera, plus an “at-large”).

PPCC bylaws require that the board be comprised of equal parts elected and appointed representatives, so we also have volunteer members of local organizations (nonprofits like the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Pacific Palisades Woman’s Club, American Legion, Pacific Palisades Civic League, Historical Society and more) who have been appointed to our board.

In total, we have a 23-member board voting at any given meeting, and a number of “alternate” board members that bring our total board membership to 41.

We meet every second and fourth Thursday of the month at the Palisades Branch Library meeting room and discuss the issues that impact this community.

Some of the issues we’ve considered and weighed in on with city, county and state officials include the Palisades Village Project, the elder care facility planned in The Highlands, the Shell gas station application for alcohol sales and extended operating hours, the impact of short-term rentals on our neighborhoods, the impact of legalized cannabis, safe parking zones on our streets, bus routes, street vendors, granny flats, cell towers, a local dog park and more.

We took up homelessness and created the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness to address it. We took up Ruthless Ryderz and engaged LAPD as well as our City Council office to give us more traffic task forces to address the growing ridership that was disturbing the quality of life in the Palisades, which, ultimately, PPCC is tasked with preserving.

So next time someone talks about how cool it is that we have some of the most famous honorary mayors in LA, tell them we also have some of the most hard-working volunteer city councilmembers and pseudo mayor in any community across the city. In fact, PPCC was the model that Los Angeles used when they created the modern Neighborhood Council system.

To reach PPCC, email info@pacpalicc.org, and to learn more about our work or to contact your neighborhood representative, visit our site at pacpalicc.org.

Maryam Zar | PPCC Chair