By HANS LAETZ Special to the Palisadian-Post An application by an Australian energy conglomerate to build a floating Liquefied Natural Gas terminal in the ocean some 14 miles off the Malibu coast is making waves in that city and at the State Capitol, but has hardly hit radar screens elsewhere. BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, wants to anchor its “Cabrillo Port” floating terminal an estimated 35 miles due west of the Santa Monica Pier. The company says it can provide the West Coast with vital supplies of clean-burning natural gas, which can be used to generate electricity, power buses and trucks and reduce air pollution. Opponents have zeroed in on the possibilities of terrorist attack or other failures that would cause massive fireballs and disrupt the state’s economy. In addition, federal and state agencies have raised questions about ship collisions, pipelines that cross three active earthquake faults, and tons of smog-producing chemicals that would be introduced into the air by LNG processing. The BHPB plan is part of a continent-wide race by energy companies to be the West Coast’s portal to the lucrative worldwide LNG trade. Potential profits are huge, but industry observers have said they doubt that the market will support more than 10 of the more than 40 LNG terminals proposed for North America. The BHPB project alone would cost $650 million, the company estimates. The fuel, mostly methane, is identical to what comes out of the pipe in a house. It can be put on a ship only if frozen to 260 degrees below zero, a process that shrinks its volume dramatically. BHPB has one of the world’s largest gas reserves in Australia and adjacent waters. The company wants to bring frozen fuel to a ship that would be permanently anchored in 2,300 feet of water off Malibu’s west end (and about 18-19 miles from Anacapa Island). Ships built like giant high-tech thermos bottles would tie up and offload into the depot’s giant glass-lined storage domes. Inside the floating terminal, huge boilers would “cook” the frozen material to room temperature. Although natural gas is touted as clean fuel, this “regasification” would discharge at least 260 tons of smog-causing chemicals per year (a figure provided by BHP Billiton to the Environmental Protection Agency this summer, after being asked why it had omitted that figure in the original application). Additional emissions would come from tankers as they unload at the LNG terminal, according to EPA documents. Pacific Palisades and the greater Los Angeles basin are most often directly downwind from the ship’s proposed location, regulators say. In June, the EPA cited what environmentalists call a loophole in Ventura County air regulations, and exempted BHPB’s plan from stringent onshore smog regulations that could have strangled the plan. EPA proposed that the ship be considered to be in the Channel Islands, which have clean air and lax smog rules, instead of the closer Ventura County shoreline. Ocean protection activists said the delicate process of unloading a liquid that is so cold it will snap steel has never been attempted in open water, where the ships would not be protected from movement. Another concern is BHPB’s track record on offshore petroleum ships it operates in the southern hemisphere: an Australian parliamentary inquiry in the 1990s was prompted by a whistle-blower’s report on unsafe procedures on a BHPB floating oil terminal ship. Also never before attempted is the use of multiple natural gas boilers within the tight confines of the ship that also stores tons of LNG. Critics say this process has always been done on land, where the boilers can be better isolated from storage, docking, and control facilities. But backers of the LNG importing idea point to a spotless 30-year record of safety: LNG is regularly hauled from Brunei to Japan, where it is a key energy source. LNG tankers serving Europe have had a few minor accidents, but no catastrophic failures. Planned terminals or expansions in Massachusetts and Connecticut have triggered terrorism fears, while scientists have raised the possibility that a small fire or rocket could start the insulation on one tank to melt, releasing a catastrophic chain reaction. A 1977 study for a proposed LNG terminal on the shore at Oxnard predicted 70,000 deaths from a tank failure. And LNG critics note that a gross operator error at an Algerian LNG plant caused an explosion that killed 27 workers. More-recent studies by the U.S. Department of Energy predict a much-smaller blast zone: less than two miles, making a floating LNG terminal a preferable safety concept to one in a populated area, such as Long Beach harbor, officials there say. The Malibu project was proposed in 2003, but had largely gone unnoticed until this summer, when federal officials told BHPB that the application had numerous shortcomings and that a list of 110 technical questions’some major’needed answers. BHPB called the delay routine, but the federal action prompted the Malibu Times to analyze thousands of pages of environmental analysis. The resulting series of articles examined numerous objections filed against the project by federal and state agencies, as well as environmental groups and individuals. One investigation found that apparently spurious documents were filed on behalf of persons supposedly enthusiastically supportive of the Malibu area LNG plant. Many of the names and addresses of supposedly LNG boosters cannot be located, and some Californians quoted in the official files as supporting BHPB told reporters that they had never heard of the firm or Cabrillo Port. The Ventura County Star then looked into the same issue and also found apparently fake letters. BHPB strongly denies it was behind any public comments in the federal files, and points out that they could have been filed by anyone with a computer. But the Malibu paper’s investigation found that at least one of the letters was written by a close relative of BHPB’s California spokeswoman, who gave the same Oxnard address as the BHPB official. State legislators have cited the questionable letters as they consider a bill to slow down the LNG permitting process, and to compare the three projects proposed for the state’s coast. The City of Malibu on July 27 asked the State Attorney General’s office to investigate the apparent fraudulent filings. The two agencies weighing environmental concerns, the U.S. Coast Guard and the California Lands Commission, have said the apparent phony documents are not relevant to their task of determining if the project can be safely built. But coastal advocates say that the artificial letters of support may be related to a $1-million public-relations campaign by LNG advocates administered by a close associate of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has a final say in the BHPB terminal proposal. Mike Murphy, the pollster and advertising consultant who guided Schwarzenegger’s 2003 recall victory, has been hired by the LNG industry for the PR campaign. The possibly-fake letters are designed to give the governor “ground cover” if he should decide to approve the LNG plant over local objections, said LNG foes. Offshore LNG terminals are not covered by provisions in the new energy law passed by Congress on July 28. Schwarzenegger will have an up or down decision on Cabrillo Port at some point. Major environmental problems were cited by state and federal parks agencies, noting that the BHPB proposal sits in a proposed marine sanctuary and is adjacent to two national parks, the Channel Islands and the Santa Monica Mountains. The U.S. Geologic Survey raised the 60-percent likelihood that a magnitude 6.5 earthquake will strike within 30 years on one of three active undersea faults that would be crossed by the two 24-inch undersea pipelines linking the ship to Oxnard. The USGS also warned that undersea landslides caused either by earthquakes or storm-related debris flows could disrupt the pipelines. That study was requested by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara), who said the USGS findings raise serious safety questions that must be taken more-seriously by federal regulators. The Coast Guard has asked BHPB how it will handle loaded LNG ships intersecting the busy coastal shipping lanes, which pass just to the north of the LNG site. The Coast Guard has asked BHPB if cargo-ship traffic control should be extended from the San Pedro harbor out to Anacapa Island, a 40-miles distance. The Coast Guard also asked BHPB why it had filed no information about insurance for the billions of dollars of private property in the area, or how it would work with local fire departments on disaster plans. It also asked for details on how the company would handle drifting or burning LNG tankers. ”In Oxnard, several elementary school administrators have said they’re distressed to learn that BHPB wants to place its underground natural gas pipelines next to their campuses, closer than federal safety guidelines proscribe. Pipeline accidents are a continuing problem; 12 people were killed in New Mexico in 2000 when a similar line exploded. BHPB spokeswoman Kathi Hann has issued a statement alleging that the government’s concerns are “being taken out of context and misrepresented to sensationalize the environmental review process. There is nothing unusual or proprietary about the review that BHPB is currently undergoing.” The stakes for the world’s largest minerals firm are high; there are competing proposals in California and northern Baja California. Mitsubishi is negotiating with the Port of Long Beach to place an LNG terminal there, but strong local opposition has dogged that project, and the Long Beach City Council nearly terminated talks this year. The third California proposal would convert an out-of-service offshore oil rig west of Oxnard into an LNG terminal. That plan has languished and its major Australian sponsor, Woodside, has withdrawn active participation. Plans to resume offshore oil drilling at that site, Platform Grace, may also prevent LNG operations there. At least two LNG projects in northern Mexico may beat BHPB to construction, casting the $650-million Malibu project in a tight race. Sempra Energy, the parent company of Southern California Gas, may have the inside track, industry analysts say, as it has actually begun moving dirt at its proposed LNG terminal near Ensenada. Despite the fact that it does not have final regulatory approval from Mexico City, Sempra has already announced plans to increase its Ensenada capacity to 2.5 times that of the BHPB proposal. “One thing we really need to determine is, ‘Do we really need a facility here [off Malibu] if there are two of them operating in Baja?'” asks Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills). ”Some environmentalists favor LNG imports as a clean energy alternate, but question whether the floating terminal near Malibu is the best site for importing LNG. BHPB had hoped to win regulatory approval this summer, but the environmental shortcomings in its application have delayed the timeline indefinitely. Opponents say there is a chance that it never can surmount smog regulations and other issues. But the company continues to invest in, and campaign for, its Cabrillo Port project. If Governor Schwarzenegger and federal officials approve it, and if it passes environmental and court challenges, the largest floating industrial project ever built adjacent to the California coast could be operating off Leo Carrillo Beach in Malibu in about five years. (Hans Laetz is an investigative reporter with a 20-year career as a television news editor at KABC, KTLA and CBS News, and has also been a radio, wire service and newspaper reporter and editor. The Malibu resident is entering law school with plans to enter the field of environmental law.)

Last Saturday night, the Movies in the Park crowd cuddled for warmth during the showing of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” Chamber president Sandy Eddy joked that they could have been watching “March of the Penguins” because “it was that cold.” Eddy warns those who come out for this weekend’s feature, “October Sky,” to dress warmly. The film, based on the biography of a man who became a NASA engineer, stars Jake Gyllenhaal and co-stars Oscar winner Chris Cooper and Laura Dern; it will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday. Friends of Film founder Bob Sharka said, “The only time that I disagreed with the Palisadian-Post movie reviewer was when, in 1999, he gave ‘October Sky’ only 4-1/2 palm trees. I gave it the ultimate 5 palms.”

Ebenezer MacIntosh is one of historian Gary Nash’s Revolutionary War heroes. He was the poor shoemaker who in 1775 led a crowd of workaday Bostonians to riot in protest of England’s tightening control of the colonies. He was the man who single-handedly aroused the city’s working men to level the Stamp Act office, and destroy the house of the hated administrator of the revenue stamp act. This “shoemaker street general,” Nash says, harnessed the resentment that had been building against the King’s restrictive trade policies, a force that English supporters and colonial leaders would come to see they had sorely underestimated. “Here was someone who was not long on the world stage, but who was very important at that particular moment of the war,” says Nash, who in his new book “The Unknown American Revolution” (Viking) introduces the ordinary people’preachers, enslaved Africans, frontier mystics, disgruntled women and aggrieved Indians’whose radical ideas and agendas fired the American Revolution. Nash will talk about these unsung heroes on Thursday, August 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore. For more than 30 years, the Pacific Palisades resident has been researching and studying the American Revolution from the perspective of the little heroes, not the Founding Fathers who most often dominate the “reigning master narrative.” Those long-forgotten men and women from the middle and lower ranks of America made up most of people of revolutionary America, Nash says. “Without their ideas, dreams, and blood sacrifices, the American Revolution would never have occurred.” Men like Venture Smith, a restive slave brought to the British colonies in the 1740s from West Africa, who through his Paul Bunyan strength and unflagging yearn for liberty, managed to buy freedom for himself and for his family. Women, too, played a pivotal role in the events leading to revolution. They were the engines behind the consumer boycotts of the 1770s. Withdrawing from the Atlantic market meant that the colonies, no longer importing textiles, began to spin cotton, linen and woolen cloth. In 1769, Boston built 400 spinning wheels, and from these wheels came 40,000 skeins of “fine yarn, to make any kind of women’s wear,” Nash writes. A professor, scholar and currently the director of the National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA, Nash has written and edited more than 20 books on early American history. Although most are scholarly works used for college courses, “Red, White, and Black,”1974 has reached a lay market and is in its fifth edition. He admires the work of superstar biographer David McCullough, whose current book on the American Revolution, “1776” has aroused much interest, not to say brisk sales. Nash points out that his fellow historian’s strength is his style. “McCullough really knows how to read the public. He is good at capturing dramatic moments. “They didn’t tell us in graduate school to be as turgid and impenetrable as possible,” Nash says, laughing. “We were just told to be scholarly.” In “The Unknown American Revolution,” Nash creates a clear and colorful landscape, from the colonial seaboard to Indian country east of the Mississippi and enlivens it with men and women, both brave and boastful. One can immediately understand how uncertain was the commitment of those men who threw their lot with the Americans. Many, many colonists refused to support revolution and fled to England or Canada. Others sat on the fence until the battle came to them, Nash says. “The colonists for the most part were very conservative and afraid that once the genie’the hobgoblin of democracy’was released, this was going to be a different country and they wouldn’t like it.” Those who did fight for America were a rag-tag lot, who suffered the deprivation of weather, food, clothing and heart. “Had Washington not been as stubborn as he was’he never gave up’he couldn’t have put up with the loss of so much support,” Nash says. “And after the war, returning soldiers often had to sell their bounty of 50 acres out West just to get back home. Some of them walked as many as 800 miles, from North Carolina to Massachusetts.” Nash says that while he didn’t start out knowing that he wanted to be a historian, he did grow up in Philadelphia, which is about 10 miles from Valley Forge. “The Revolutionary War sites were always a mystique. As a kid I saw earth fortifications or the log huts where the soldiers lived in 1777-78. And Philadelphia is certainly a history-sod city.” When Nash got to Princeton, he did major in history and after a stint in the Navy, he returned to Princeton as a junior administrator and “developed an appetite for history,” going on to study for his Ph.D. His dissertation became his first book, “Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania 1681-1726.” Despite the dismal statistics on Americans’ historical knowledge, Nash refuses to be pessimistic. “I don’t think that we’re history amnesiacs, rather recovering huge chunks of our history that we’re forgotten. I know that when you put 20 questions on a multiple-choice test, the numbers come out badly. But these tests don’t tell us anything about a student’s knowledge of history; they are not asking the right questions. They’re asking trivial questions.” It’s clear from Nash’s books and his work in developing history curricula in public schools, that the key to making history lively is relevancy. “Jane Pauley told me on her show that her son loved history and went happily along with his father, Gary Trudeau, to all the Civil War sites, while her daughter didn’t like history one bit. So, Jane took her to many of the pioneer women’s sites, and that made the difference.” Nash spends about a quarter of his day on the national History Standards Project, whose goal is to build a bridge between the academic historians and teachers in the trenches. To this end, he sets up institutes for professional development in which he not only teaches, but recruits historians to join him. Recently, a two-week institute for Whittier district high school teachers consisted of a field trip to Civil War sites, while another for Riverside, Los Angeles and Orange Counties third and fourth-grade teachers included an 11-day field trip through California. “I think that interest in history is a high point; look at the success of the History Channel and the Ken Burns’ documentaries,” Nash says. In addition, he cites the high numbers of students in history Ph.D. programs. “When I joined the faculty at UCLA in 1966, there were 65 members in the department, including one woman and one African American man. As the profession has been diversified, all sorts of new questions have come up, and a mountain of scholarly work has followed.” For his part in unearthing more of the minor but pivotal players in early American history, Nash is co-writing a book with Colgate professor Graham Hodges about the triangular relationship among Thomas Jefferson, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, colonel of engineers in the Continental Army, and Agrippa Hull, a free-born black veteran who served under Kosciuszko. Nash says that he aimed in his current book “to capture the revolutionary involvement of all the component parts of some three million wildly diverse people living east of the Mississippi.” His work continues in the ongoing tale of the republic’s founding.

“Yoga is inseparable from my life force.” Larry Payne didn’t actually say that, but he could have. A yoga instructor for over 25 years, Payne has attended to all aspects of the practice, expanding his knowledge and commitment to the philosophy with an intelligent attention to the Western mindset and perspective in his teaching. This fall, Payne is offering a class at Loyola Marymount University, designed to train yoga teachers to be yoga therapists and apply classical yoga postures for use in clinical settings to help treat common ailments and conditions. “The biggest complaint that patients have is that yoga teachers have little training in anatomy and physiology, and that doctors have zero training in movement,” Payne says. “Right now, a doctor, who is an excellent diagnostician, may say to a patient’let’s say a 40- or 50-year-old man”Take yoga.’ If this man walks into an Ashthanga class, he’ll get murdered.” Payne hopes that after his course, participants will be equipped to work with various medical specialists, chiropractors, osteopaths and physical therapists. The Level I course will focus on the musculoskeletal system. Students will meet one weekend a month for a year and address principles of practice, anatomy for yoga teachers, the origin and treatment of common low-back pain and upper back, knee and hip problems. In addition, the course will cover communication tools for working with doctors, including reading reports and understanding terminology and clinical notes. The optional Level II course offered the following year will focus on other systems of the body, including the circulatory, respiratory, digestive, nervous, reproductive and endocrine systems. Although Payne now follows a well-established lifestyle of yoga and healthful eating habits, including meat, he was not a natural. An overstressed advertising executive in the late 1970s, with severe back pain, Payne in desperation took a “why-not” stab at yoga. “I remember being embarrassed, thinking I couldn’t possibly do those strange postures the right way,” Payne recalls in his book “Yoga Rx.” With a compassionate teacher who instructed him gently with breathing, stretching and relaxation, Payne’s pain disappeared for the first time in two years. That epiphany sparked a life change. “I had enough money from advertising to sustain myself for a couple of years,” Payne says. His conversion took him to yoga centers all over the world and, eventually, to India, where he has returned several times. In 1981, he returned to Los Angeles and became a full-time yoga teacher and founded the Samata Yoga Center in Venice. In his own practice and in his classes, Payne has always kept the Western mentality in mind. He has developed User Friendly Yoga, which focuses on postures and breathing to help the practitioner become more aware of his or her body’s posture, alignment and movement with the goal of leading to deeper awareness of the self and to one’s surroundings. While it can be argued that yoga by its very nature is therapeutic, Payne distinguishes yoga therapy as yoga postures that are specifically adapted to treat specific health problems, such as back pain, asthma, migraines or menopause. “There are a lot of people who don’t fit into a group yoga class,” Payne explains. “For example, those who need one-on-one attention and who can’t do what’s being served by the classes’which are generally geared for healthy people and for general conditioning.” In yoga therapy, Payne does an evaluation and constructs a series just for individuals. To help them do it, he makes a CD of instructions for them. “Compliance is hard,” he admits, “but pain is a great incentive.” On one of his trips to India, Payne visited a number of yoga therapy clinics, which he recalls with a grimace. “When I reported a digestive problem, I was instructed to drink 10 glasses of salt water and throw up. If you’ve got the time and you’re there with people who know what they’re doing, that’s fine, but that wouldn’t be appealing here.” In the West, a yoga therapy practice has to be compatible with our culture as well as practical, user-friendly and safe, Payne says. “There are several important principles that I feel capture the essentials of effective yoga therapy practice in our modern world. These are: commitment to a daily yoga therapy program; combining breath and movement; emphasizing function over form; incorporating dynamic and static principles of motion; focusing on the spine; slowing down your pace; avoiding competition and staying faithful to sequencing.” While most of these principles are self-explanatory, a few need further explanation. For example, the emphasis on function over form. Payne is far more concerned that we be attuned to our own body, rather than pushing ourselves too far to achieve some idealized perfect posture. Staying faithful to sequencing is important, too, Payne says, because there is logic to the sequences of the postures that maximizes the benefits. The routine, whether 10 minutes or a half-hour, always starts with a transition posture that leads the practitioner away from the stress of the day, followed by a warm-up to prepare the body for the main postures. The postures are selected to address the goal, and are always balanced by compensating postures to bring the body back to neutral. Finally, breathing exercises and relaxation techniques allow rest before the practitioner moves back into his or her day. Payne’s class at Loyola Marymount is geared toward applicants who have completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training or its equivalent. Payne will introduce the first lecture followed in subsequent weeks by Western medical doctors, an ayurvedic practitioner, chiropractor, physical therapist, and a specialist in allopathic and traditional osteopathic medicine. Payne prepared the course with Dr. Richard Usatine, who co-authored “Yoga Rx,” and who has taken a holistic approach to treating patients. Usatine is vice-chair for education in the department of family and community medicine at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The Yoga Rx program begins October 8 at Loyola Marymount. Call 338-1971. Payne’s class at Jiva Yoga Studio on Sunset meets Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.

The California Coastal Commission gave the Palisades-Malibu YMCA two important approvals on Tuesday. First, the commission granted permission for the Y to continue its annual pumpkin and Christmas tree sales and youth day camp at the corner of Temescal Canyon Road and Sunset. Second, it advanced the Y’s option to purchase the 3.95-acre site by approving the division of the entire 56.78 acres owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy into two parcels. The commission’s actions culminated a decade-long battle between the YMCA and its opponents, who had argued for retaining the parcel as open space, free for public access. Tuesday’s meeting was the third time commissioners heard the case, which drew supporters on both sides to Costa Mesa, where they had to wait until 4 p.m. for the agenda item to be heard. While there was no dispute as to the value of the Y’s retail sales and summer day camp, the disagreement fell on three issues: (1) Could the Conservancy, a public agency, sell open space to a private, albeit nonprofit, agency? (2) Would there be adequate protection of the native coastal shrub? And (3) would there be future development of the property? In summarizing the issues, the commission staff vetted the questions and defined conditions and restrictions on the Y’s activities. Regarding open space, the commission report mandates that the environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA) in the upper northern portion of the property (away from Sunset) be untouched because of the presence of coastal sage shrub, except for vegetation removal for fire management (on the eastern portion slope nearest the residences above) and non-natives. In addition, the Y must re-route an existing road to the swimming pool up the canyon, out of the ESHA area. Regarding public access, the Coastal Development Permit requires the Y to dedicate and maintain a 10-ft.-wide access trail easement, beginning at Sunset and providing public access to the Conservancy property to the north. In addressing future development of the property, the commission expressly stipulated that “any future activity be limited to day-camp activities and recreational programs available to all members of the general public, temporary events, seasonal fundraising sales, low-cost public recreation and open space.” These restrictions transfer with the land, no matter the ownership. The coastal permit also stipulates that any future sale of the land must be offered to government agencies first, including the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Before the commission issues the permit, the Y must submit in writing its acceptance of the permit deed restrictions and the special conditions on the use of the property, which will be carried with the property. Speaking on behalf of the opponents, Save The Coast Foundation, Friends of Temescal Canyon and No Oil, Inc. attorney Frank Angel once again argued that the Coastal public access policy prohibits the Conservancy from selling public land to a private entity. “If you allow the land division, they [YMCA] as a private landowner will be be able to exclude the general public access,” Angel said. Responding to the question of whether the land should be considered open space, the commission staff concluded that the Y had optioned the land since 1972 in an agreement with the former owners, the Presbyterian Synod, and that the Coastal Act had no jurisdiction until its establishment in 1977. “The option property was never truly publicly owned open space,” said Ralph Faust, chief counsel for the commission. Sherman Stacey, attorney for the YMCA, agreed to the commission staff findings and restrictions and underscored the Y’s open door policies. “The YMCA provides recreation opportunities to both members and non-members at nominal rates,” he said. In responding to the suggestion that the Y choose a long-term lease over a lot split, Stacey rejected that option, arguing that a lease would be handled by the city’s General Services department and, as such, would be subject to an open bidding process that would not recognize the Y’s long-term option agreement. In addition, General Services leases are limited to five years, he said. Commissioner Sara Wan’s request for further clarification on future activities on the site was answered by commission attorney Faust, who reiterated the point that prior to the issuance of the Coastal Development Permit, the applicant will submit documentation that binds it “to the covenants, conditions and restrictions on the use and enjoyment of the property.” These restrictions are quite onerous on the property and carry attentive stewardship, according to Randy Young, an opponent speaking on behalf of the Palisades Historical Society. “The Y has responsibility for this open land, the defined ESHA, putting up a road, putting in a walkway and recognizing that this is a public site,” Young said. “When privatized, the Y will have taken on a major responsibility.” For its part, local YMCA executive director Carol Pfannkuche heralded the decision as “a victory for the whole community, for thousands of Palisadians who have supported the YMCA for 40 years, for those current and future participants in YMCA programs at Sunset and Temescal, and even for those who have opposed this decision because they will now have the opportunity to see that the YMCA is a responsible and caring community organization.”

Palisades Chamber of Commerce President Sandy Eddy optimistically told City Council candidate Bill Rosendahl this spring that when he won in May, she wanted him to install the new Chamber officers. Rosendahl promised if he won, he would, and he kept his promise. When Rosendahl came to town to install the officers in June, Eddy asked if he would donate his time for a lunch for a silent auction item. He agreed and three lucky bidders, Philip Kamins, D.D.S., Stefano Coaloa, and Victoria Harris, were the winners. Last Thursday, at Mort’s Palisades Deli, owner Bobbie Farberow paid for the lunch for the three bidders, but Rosendahl wouldn’t accept a free lunch. “I have to buy my own lunch, that’s my rule,” Rosendahl said. He doesn’t want his office to have the appearance of impropriety. Harris, a board member of California Wildlife Center, a nonprofit organization based in Malibu that does wildlife rescue, asked Rosendahl how it felt to be a councilman. “I’ve been playing the journalist for so many years asking questions that now it’s time for me to answer the questions,” he said. He explained that when he was running for 11th District councilman, two-thirds of the people in that district didn’t know him from television. He had to sell himself as a complete stranger. Some of the time it was good; he’d talk to people and after they met him they’d say, “I’m going to vote for you.” He’d respond, “Can I hug you?” Rosendahl also said there were rough moments: he’d go to a house and after introducing himself, the person would say, “It’s a politician,” and slam the door in his face. Gradually he felt that he was making headway when he saw the lawn signs go up, and more and more people were attending his “meet and greets.” On May 15, he turned 60 and two days later he won the council seat. A friend calls him a congenital optimist. Rosendahl agrees with that. “I’m a positive spirit. I wouldn’t have run for office as a 60-year-old if I wasn’t.” Harris asked Rosendahl about his position on closing the controversial Sunshine Canyon landfill. The landfill accommodates the solid waste for much of Los Angeles County and is located north of Granada Hills Rosendahl said his initial reaction was to vote to close the dump, but then he started asking “a million questions.” He discovered that there are several problems, the most immediate being, “If the landfill is closed, where do you put the garbage?” Rosendahl said. “We have to use Sunshine because we have no other alternative. Last Friday, he voted yes to extend the contract for five years, but with the idea of having alternative solutions in place when the next vote comes early in 2006. Currently, only residential areas are recycling in Los Angeles. Rosendahl supports getting the whole city on a recycling program, including multi-unit and commercial buildings. He would like to see any new construction be required to have a recycling center built into the complex. He also supports re-use of building supplies. If buildings are torn down, recycle wood and other construction materials, rather than sending them to a landfill. Rosendahl also discovered a town in Germany that burns its garbage which is then converted into clean reusable energy. He would like to do more investigation into alternative solutions to see if they’re feasible in Los Angeles. Rosendahl is on five City Council committees and chairs the Education and Neighborhoods committee. He and Mayor Villaraigosa want to investigate how to bring public education under the City’s umbrella, investigating what works, including charter schools, after-school programs and more parental involvement. When asked about traffic lights and street repaving, Rosendahl explained that projects slated to be implemented this year were approved during predecessor Cindy Miscowski’s term. His office staff is currently reviewing the approved projects. Norman Kulla, district director for Rosendahl, said, “Modest changes will be made because a lot of work was already put into the studies and recommendations.” Developments have already been approved that most people in the district don’t know about, said Rosendahl, who plans to let his constituents know about them through press releases, e-mail and the media. Rosendahl spoke briefly about his role as ad hoc member of the Gang Violence and Youth Development Committee. Though we don’t have gangs in the Palisades, there are gangs in the 11th District. He pointed out Los Angeles is the gang capital of the country. Among other issues that the bidders raised were the idea of businesses helping their neighborhoods pay for traffic lights and other improvements, and the controversy over the leases and rent hikes on Swarthmore. Andrea Epstein, Rosendahl’s field deputy for the Palisades, answered resident Kamins’ concern about his street, Asilomar. “We’re going to stabilize the street,” Epstein said, and explained that the project funding for that street would come through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and that issues were currently being addressed. Beaming at his deputy, Rosendahl spoke about his staff selection: “I pick people smarter than I am, and then I empower and delegate. I diffuse my power. I have a hybrid staff that’s unique with a variety of people of different ages and interests.”

Golden Couples of the Palisades

Some 90 guests gathered at Palisades Lutheran Church last Saturday to celebrate with Curt and Leola Baer as they renewed their wedding vows after 50 years of marriage. The Baers’ actual wedding date of February 19 was celebrated at sea on a cruise to Hawaii. Rev. R.L. Meyer, pastor emeritus of Palisades Lutheran and long-time friend to the Baers, officiated at the brief renewal of vows ceremony, while his wife, Carrie, graciously served as organist. The guests were then shown a DVD history of some of the highlights of Curt and Leola’s 50 years together. Guests were especially interested in the sports cars Curt has owned through the years. Then the guests were invited to the patio for drinks, where they were delighted with a surprise visit by the Trojan marching band from Curt’s alma mater, USC. After the rousing serenade, a Santa Maria-style barbecue dinner was served in Lutheran Hall. Special romantic musical entertainment was provided during dinner by Devon Henderson. Among those attending were several members of the original wedding party: Gloria Castleberg-Werbe of Yorba Linda, maid of honor; Robert Sampson of Clovis, best man; Theresa Beno of Upland, flower girl; Claudia Mach of Brookings, Oregon, bridesmaid and sister-in-law; and Bill Mach, usher. Leola’s UCLA roommate Arletta Beloian and her husband Aram journeyed from Potomac, Maryland, for the services. Curt and Leola’s children, son Brian of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, and daughter Stephanie Adamson, her husband Tony and their children Victoria, Sean, and Michele were in attendance and also participated in the service. The Adamsons recently moved from Pennsylvania to Tucson, Arizona. At least nine other couples attending had already celebrated their 50th anniversary. Baers Celebrate Trojan Legacy By KAREN WILSON Palisadian-Post Intern Emeritus In 1955, the University of Southern California Trojans lost the Rose Bowl’the grand prix of college football’to the Ohio State Buccaneers. Faring better that year, however, were Palisadians Curtis and Leola Baer, who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this past February 19. At first, Curtis and Leola (Lee) seemed an unlikely match. He was a Santa Monica native and USC junior, while she, born in Oklahoma and raised in Pomona, attended arch-rival UCLA. When Curt’s church youth group threw a party, Lee attended with a fellow UCLA classmate, but she soon left him for the handsome young Trojan. After graduation, they were married at Lee’s Lutheran church in Pomona. In an untraditional twist, the adventurous pair spent their month-long honeymoon on a coast-to-coast road trip, driving from California to Key West, Florida. After that, they went to Cuba'”when it was legal,” Lee jokes. Over the years, she has traded in her Bruin blue and yellow, and now “bleeds red and gold,” just like her Trojan husband. Upon returning to the States, Curt’who had deferred Army enlistment while in college’was drafted into the counter-intelligence corps at Fort Ord, followed by several years in the reserves. Army wife Lee supported her husband as his service took him to San Francisco, Maryland and back to Santa Monica, where Lee gave birth to son Brian and daughter Stephanie. In 1962, the Baers moved their brood to family-oriented Pacific Palisades. The Baer kids both attended Marquez Elementary, Paul Revere Junior High, and Palisades High. “We wanted them to go to USC!” Lee says, but it was not to be. Brian attended California Polytechnic at San Luis Obispo and now works in San Diego for Hewlett-Packard; Stephanie, who lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, graduated from Drake University in Iowa. Still, Curt and Lee have found other ways to carry on their Trojan legacy. Last year, they brought grandchildren Victoria, 11, Sean, 9, and Michele, 7, to the USC football team’s season opener against Virginia Tech. “They loved it,” the proud grandma says. It’s not hard to enjoy time spent with the senior Baers. They are affable and warm, and their enthusiasm for life is infectious. Curt is a veritable encyclopedia on all things Trojan football. Indeed, when this reporter mentions her crush on former quarterback Carson Palmer, he disappears and quickly returns with 2003’s official season guidebook and other memorabilia. It’s not surprising, then, that he’s a founder of the L.A. West Trojan Club'”a support group,” he says, “for those who like USC sports.” This past spring, the group raised funds and drummed up publicity for the oft-overlooked Lady Trojans basketball squad. “Tell her everything else you’re involved with,” Lee says, proudly, thumbing through the football goodies. For the record, Curt is a member of the Palisades Optimist Club, president of the Palisades Republican Club, a founder of the local Graffiti Busters group, and past president of the Village Green Committee. He also does arbitration work for the New York Stock Exchange and the National Association of Security Dealers, for which he handles two or three cases each year. All of this in addition to his day job: formerly a stockbroker, Curt has spent the past two decades selling health and life insurance from his homey office in the 881 Alma Real building. “I can tell you one thing,” he says, nodding at Lee. “She’s very supportive of me.” Over the years, his wife’s accomplishments have given Curt a run for his money. Formerly active with the Santa Monica Bay Women’s Club Juniors and Assistance League, Lee is probably, she laughs, “the only UCLA-er active in the Trojan Club.” On the religious front, both she and her husband are involved with the Palisades Lutheran Church, where Curt is an currently an elder and a past president of the congregation. When they need a break from their busy lives, the Baers enjoy travel’a tradition begun during their 3,000-mile honeymoon. Cruises are a favored adventure; in 2003, they took the entire family on a ship to Alaska, and this year they celebrated their golden anniversary on a cruise to Hawaii. They have also traveled on ocean liners in New Zealand and Australia, while also ringing in the New Year on the Panama Canal in 2001. But these romantic excursions aren’t the only key to their long, happy marriage. “You have to have a good sense of humor and a short memory,” Lee says. Adds Curt, “We have a lot in common’both raised by parents who taught us good character. We’ve tried to do the same with our kids.” When they’re not on the go, the Baers can be found relaxing at home, with Curt working on his prized Mercedes coupe and green-thumb Lee tending to their garden. Or check the parking lot at the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the Baers and their fellow football fans can be found tailgating before big games, wearing red-and-gold sweatshirts and manning a barbecue. And lest anyone should ever point Lee towards the UCLA section, know this: the onetime Bruin apparel and design major waited until her kids were grown, then took an architecture class at USC. “So I’m a Trojan now, officially,” she says. Not that anyone was arguing.