Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, in attendance at the Community Council meeting last Thursday, gave a brief overview of her compromise master plan for rebuilding LAX, which was presented to L.A. City Council Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The result of the vote was not known as we went to press. The Alternative D Master Plan expansion, which has been separated into two phases by Miscikowski, was passed in June by the Boards of Airport and Planning despite opposition by communities surrounding the airport. Projected cost of the project: $11 billion. Expected completion date: 2015. ‘We don’t want to jettison everything, just get something done right now,’ said the councilwoman. Asked where the financing for the proposed improvements would come from, she said 100 percent ‘must come from the airport itself’airlines, concessions, and so on. There is no ability to use city funds whatsoever.’ Alternative D calls for the work to be done in two phases. The first, or ‘green light’ phase involves reconfiguring the south runway to make it safer, controlling auto access (including car rentals and taxis services) by building a people-mover transit hub, and adding more gates. Cost: $3 billion. The ‘yellow light’ phase includes two new terminals as well as one of the most controversial aspects of the plan, the relocation of passenger check-in services off site to Manchester Square in Westchester. Opposed to Plan D is Denny Schneider, vice president of ARSEC (Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion). He referred to a September 2004 Rand Corporation report which indicated that the proposed improvements would not make the airport, which is considered a prime terrorist target, ‘any safer.’ Schneider said that while the overall plan for LAX is acceptable, ‘the problem is the implementation.’ His biggest concern is that work will go ahead ‘without proper studies being completed. ‘It’s sort of like building a house, then checking to make sure you have enough foundation. Before September 11, 68,000 people a year used the airport. There is concern (Continued on Page 4) that it will go as high as 80,000 to 90,000. What is the impact of that on traffic and the neighboring communities? There are now in excess of 33,000 pages of documentation on this project, if anyone is looking for bedside reading.’ POTRERO CANYON Miscikowski, who has endorsed a plan to sell the 22 city-owned lots on the canyon rim and redeposit the proceeds in a fund specifically earmarked for finishing the Potrero Canyon project, gave an update on the motion and how the community will be involved. An estimated $1.2 million is needed to compete Phase II, which includes repairing two recent landslides and grade the remaining stockpiled soil. The final phase, Phase III of the estimated $30-million project, includes establishing a 7-acre riparian habitat at an estimated cost of between $7 and $12 million. Miscikowski’s motion has received support from the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee and was approved by the Budget and Finance Committee on Tuesday. It is expected to be presented to the full City Council on Oct. 27 or Nov. 3. Still to come is approval from the California Coastal Commission. When the Coastal Commission originally approved the project in 1986, it placed restrictions on the sale of the city-owned lots straddling Potrero until the riparian habitat and park construction requirements were completed and funding for inspections and maintenance had been identified. However, Commission staff has indicated it would be willing to waive these restrictions if the city designates the separate account into which all lot proceeds would be deposited, the funds to be used only to complete Phases II and III. The buildable lots are located on Friends, DePauw and Earlham, as well as two lots on Alma Real which Miscikowski said will be the first lots to be sold. She also indicated, after discussion with council members, that any development of those two lots, ‘which are fairly isolated on the rim,’ would be subject to the existing CC&R’s of the Huntington. Council member Carl Mellinger had concerns about how the properties will be sold (‘through auction’) and if the number of sales per person would be limited (‘We’re looking into that’). Questions were then asked about the community’s involvement in the project. While a 15-member Potrero Canyon Community Advisory Committee will be appointed to work with the city, ‘only five will be from the community,’ noted council member Stuart Muller, who was also concerned about the ‘scope’ of this committee. He also wanted to know who would be responsible for maintenance once the park is complete. While the Council unanimously voted to support Miscikowski’s motion to sell the Potrero lots, it did so with two conditions: that the configuration of the advisory committee be revised to include more community representation, and that there be a clearer definition of the advisory committee’s duties and responsibilities. RENAISSANCE ACADEMY Kurt Toppel gave a brief report on the status of the subcommittee formed regarding Renaissance Academy. ‘We have met three times so far,’ said the council vice-chairman. ‘We have no specific recommendations yet. We will be meeting again next week.’ Michael McRoskey, who is on the council’s Renaissance subcommittee representing neighboring residents, inquired about the parking variance required under the Palisades Specific Plan and the discrepancy he saw between the over 300 students such a variance would presumably allow and the fact that as far as he knows his committee is only ‘working towards 90 students being permitted in the Alma Real building.’ McRoskey also said Renaissance is currently looking into ‘alternate locations.’ Miscikowski replied that as far as she knew the school had not yet officially applied for the parking variance and ‘whether it even qualifies for the variance is a delicate question right now.’ Saying she was aware of how ‘volatile’ the situation with Renaissance is in the Palisades, ‘we really have to look at the long-term implications.’ The councilwoman made it clear that her main concern was and still is ‘the life safety issue, which seems to have been resolved with the fire department,’ referring to the fire marshal’s approval two weeks ago to allow up to 215 students to occupy the space on the two floors the school has leased in the commercial/business building. ‘If that hadn’t been approved we would have shut the school down.’ Noting that there are now issues with ‘Building and Safety’ as well as between ‘the tenant and landlord,’ Miscikowski said that there was going to have ‘to be more accountability’ given recent events. DWP In a brief discussion on the Department of Water and Power’s efforts to reposition power lines under PCH, as has already been done for half a mile at the Topanga Canyon intersection, Miscikowski pointed out that while ‘the Coast Highway is not a city street,’ she thought the city might be able to help. DWP, which has no beautification budget, has already said a deal has to be made with the city and that there needs to be an assessment district established. The cost of moving the aging electrical lines underground is 10 times the cost of fixing the existing lines above ground.

Longtime friends and environmental activists Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Laurie David have come together to support Proposition O, the only city bond measure and the only environmental measure on the November 2 ballot. Called the ‘Clean Water, Ocean, River, Beach, Bay Storm Water Clean-up Measure,’ the proposition is the result of years of work by scientists and environmental activists. If the measure is passed, the city would incur bonds of $500 million for projects that would clean and treat storm water before rain, irrigation and other sources wash the pollution into the ocean and rivers. ‘This is the greatest environmental opportunity of this region, without overstatement, a once-in-a-lifetime chance,’ David told a group of Proposition O supporters at the National Resources Defense Council headquarters in Santa Monica last week. ‘Proposition O is a first of its kind effort to finally solve water pollution problems that plague the L.A. region.’ According to Palisadian Fran Diamond, chair of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board for L.A., storm water pollutants cause serious human health problems. Prop O funds would pay for storm water treatment methods, pollution prevention technologies, habitat and wetlands restoration, water conservation, creating green space and drinking water protection. ‘Literally billions of gallons of polluted urban runoff, a ‘witches’ brew’ of trash, pesticides, oil, grease, bacteria and live viruses, bombard Santa Monica Bay every year,’ David, an NRDC board member, said at the Prop O event. ‘This is what you, and your kids and tens of millions of visitors swim in during warm summer afternoons at Temescal Canyon, Will Rogers or by the Santa Monica Pier. ‘This is a problem that can be solved. But it won’t happen until Los Angeles fixes the system that delivers polluted storm water directly to the ocean without doing anything to clean it up first. No filtering, no removal of trash’no treatment of any kind. Proposition O will give our City the money it needs to fix this problem once and for all.’ The measure has been endorsed by the Los Angeles Times, as well as the Los Angeles City Council (which placed it on the ballot by a unanimous vote), Mayor Hahn, the Sierra Club, Heal the Bay, Santa Monica BayKeeper and other environmental, business and local groups. The measure would allow Los Angeles to comply with a strict federal court order to clean up its storm drain and runoff system. The projects would have independent financial audits and a citizen advisory committee would decide where the money would be spent. There is no official opposition to the proposition, which must pass by a two-thirds vote. The bond would be funded by money from property taxes, an estimated average increase of $35 a year for 24 years, according to Diamond, who says, ‘for our coastal economy, we can’t afford to continue having beaches closed. The money is well spent and long overdue.’ ‘We have the most impermeable city in the nation,’ says Diamond. ‘We have so little green space that all the storm water starts at the eastern end of the city and flows downhill to the ocean. When you have more green space, the water is captured and naturally gets filtered down to the groundwater. We throw away almost as much water as we import. It’s tragic and sad that we are throwing away this water that could be replenishing groundwater.’ Activists David and Louis-Dreyfus became friends when Louis-Dreyfus was cast as Elaine in ‘Seinfeld,’ the hit TV show created by David’s husband, Larry. ‘When we met, we immediately bonded,’ recalls David. ‘Since Larry’s married to me and he wrote the dialogue and the character, a lot of me rubbed off on her, and her on me.’ The Palisadians have a lot in common. ‘We love clothes, the environment, flea markets, we’re both activists and we’re both married to comedy writers,’ says David, whose husband is the creator and star of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ Louis-Dreyfus’ husband, Brad Hall, is the writer/producer of ‘The Single Guy’ and ‘Watching Ellie.’ David, who has lived in the Palisades for 10 years, is very impressed by the community’s dedication to the environment. She noted how she sees many hybrid cars in town, and that Bobby Kennedy’s book ‘Crimes Against Nature,’ a critique of the Bush Administration’s environmental policies, is displayed in the window of Village Books. Both David and Louis-Dreyfus were inspired in their activism by Kennedy’s work. The two have teamed up to work together on a number of other environmental projects, including the hybrid bill AB 2628, introduced by Assemblymember Fran Pavley and signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. If approved by the federal government, it will allow hybrid vehicles to travel in California’s carpool lanes. David holds numerous briefings and salons at her home to educate people about environmental topics, and every other year she chairs an NRDC event which has raised as much as $3 million for the environmental organization in one night. ‘She speaks with a pure heart about what she believes,’ says Ari Emanuel, founder of Endeavor Talent Agency, who works together with her on many issues. This weekend, he helped with a fundraiser at David’s home for his brother, Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel, at which Senator Hillary Clinton spoke. David does what she can in her day-to-day life to help the environment, including driving a hybrid car, but says ‘nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s even 80 percent.’ David uses both sides of paper for faxing and printing, composts in her garden, brings her own garment bag to the dry cleaners, avoids taking bags at stores when she can put something in her purse, and tells her daughters (Cazzie, 10, and Romy, 8) when they brush their teeth or wash their hands not to waste water. ‘I’m really immersed in these issues and really passionate about them,’ says David, who previously produced the sitcom ‘Get a Life’ and worked on the David Letterman show, and who now devotes herself to environmental activism full-time. Her projects include a documentary on global warming that she is producing for HBO. ‘We don’t want this to be a wonky science issue. We want to bring it to the popular culture and get everybody activated. ‘Most of the issues I work on affect everybody. If you’re a parent, you can relate to them’there’s nothing more relatable than wanting clean air and clean water.’ Louis-Dreyfus, the mother of two boys, has lived in the Palisades for 11 years and is on the board of Heal the Bay. The driver of a hybrid vehicle, she is involved in the NRDC’s executive forum and action forum. She is also on the board of Heal the Ocean in Santa Barbara where she and her husband have a second home. ‘We realize it’s a huge luxury, so we made it an all-green house. It’s solar-paneled, and made of recycled materials and sustainable woods. ‘I’m drawn to the water and ocean which are so basic and fundamental to life that when they are taken advantage of, it bothers me to the core,’ she says. ‘It’s such an important issue and unprecedented,’ Louis-Dreyfus says of Proposition O. ‘Such an extraordinary opportunity for California to be on the cutting edge.’

A transportation task force was launched at last Thursday’s Community Council meeting in an attempt to relieve the longstanding parking congestion in the Palisades. Representatives from the L.A. Department of Transportation were present to offer counsel and field questions about the feasibility of using parking meter funds to build a parking structure’a proposal which was originally put forth over two decades ago. The task force consists of Palisades residents, with ex-officio representation from the LADOT and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s office. Members include Steve Boyers, David Hibbert, Steve Lantz, Tom McKiernan, Wally Miller, Patti Post, Milt Weiner and David Williams. ‘There’s a parking shortage in the village. It’s just that simple,’ council chairman Norman Kulla said to council members and a small audience in the community room of the Palisades Branch Library. Kulla identified two goals for the task force. The first ‘and perhaps more attainable goal’ he listed is ‘to improve parking in the village and reduce and redirect employee parking from surrounding residential streets. One logical solution is to build a new public parking lot,’ Kulla wrote in a brief to council members. ‘Identifying where such a lot would be most suitable and how to fund its construction and operation will be a primary objective.’ The second, ‘and likely more challenging goal,’ Kulla noted for the task force is ‘to improve the existing local transportation system, including both public and private options, particularly for seniors, young adults, teenagers and preteens.’ Kulla advised the task force to review past efforts, such as the 1988 Chamber of Commerce-sponsored parking evaluation and American Association of Retired People (AARP) Transportation Survey released last February. In addition, the task force will consider how to make existing transportation options”Cityride, Mahood, Access, Metro, Blue Bus, Pali Rider”more effective. Kulla also recommended the group evaluate the feasibility of ‘establishing Dial-a-Ride, reestablishing DASH, or other creative environmentally friendly projects. The overall objectives for the task force are to develop recommendations to bring back to the community council, win approval, and initiate action to improve our quality of life.’ Allyn Rifkin, principal transportation engineer of the LADOT, offered his support for the newly developed transportation task force and described how parking structure proceedings operate. Martin Bland, LADOT senior management analyst II was also present and will serve as a liaison between the transportation task force and LADOT. ‘In the past year, the [L.A.] City Council directed there be a parking facility committee to monitor the Special Parking Revenue Fund (SPRF),’ Rifkin said. ‘All the nickels, dimes and quarters that come from [L.A.’s] parking meters are allocated into this fund and the money cannot be used for anything but parking.’ Chaired by the City’s Chief Legislative Officer, the SPRF Capital Project Oversight Committee includes a representative from the mayor’s office, chairman of the City Council Transportation Committee, LADOT, City Administrative Officer and the City Engineer. L.A. parking meter revenues total $30 million annually, with the majority of the funds allocated to operating the 115 parking lots already in existence, Rifkin said. ‘There is approximately $4.5 million in unappropriated funds.’ He also noted that the SPRF committee is ‘looking hard’ at funds that have been appropriated for parking projects, that for various reasons, have not moved forward. ‘Any project that comes forward will be reviewed by the SPRF committee and at the recommendation of the [L.A.] city council, funds will be appropriated,’ Rifkin said. Along with assisting communities construct a parking structure, the SPRF committee also looks at additional opportunities to develop parking, which include working with local schools and city departments. ‘We’re also anxious to work with chambers of commerce and neighborhood groups to look at commercial buildings to see if there are opportunities to lease spaces on weekends when the office buildings don’t need the parking,’ Rifkin said. Council member Harry Sondheim told Rifkin he believes numerous other communities in L.A. will want to build parking structures. He asked how the SPRF committee is going to decide ‘who’s first in line’ for funds. ‘The task force has not yet developed criteria,’ Rifkin replied, adding that the committee hopes to have guidelines developed by the mayor’s election [in March 2005]. Council member David Williams, president of the Palisades Chamber of Commerce, asked if the SPRF establishes partnerships with regard to parking structures. Rifkin said that ‘since land is so expensive, the LADOT would entertain a partnership with a private or public entity to fund extra parking.’ He cited ‘a train station where the [SPRF committee] issued a proposal for developers to participate and make use of the city’s land, and in Hollywood, where a developer entered into an agreement to add extra parking in their lot.’ Constructing a parking structure in the Palisades village has been debated for years. In 1985, the Palisades Chamber of Commerce formed a committee to work on obtaining a parking structure that could help provide all-day parking for employees in the business district. Three years later the group reached an agreement with Topa Management for a joint retail-parking project to be located at the corner of Sunset and Via de la Paz (still occupied by a small outdoor parking lot adjacent to the medical building and Bank of America). The five-level (three underground and two above-ground stories), 180-space parking structure would have included 8,500 sq. ft. for retail shops. The structure would have been no taller than the two-story Business Block building, and would have been designed to blend in with its architectural style. Estimated construction costs were $2.6 million, with important financing coming from available parking meter funds at that time’$640,000 in the Palisades Parking Meter Zone, plus an additional $961,000 in Council District 11 parking meter funds. These ultimately unused funds were eventually later absorbed into the city’s general fund. The recession also helped scuttle the plans. In 2001, the Palisades Chamber of Commerce organized another parking-structure committee, this time focusing on the existing parking lot behind the Swarthmore business block, which is entered off the alley that runs from Swarthmore to Monument. The lot, if developed into a three-level structure (one below ground), could provide 302 spaces, adding about 160 spaces to the existing supply, according to a L.A. Department of Transportation report in March 1988. The committee quietly dispersed ‘after failing to gather any answers from the city about our town’s claim on parking meter revenues,’ said Arnie Wishnick, executive director of the Palisades Chamber of Commerce. ‘Also, the landlord was not receptive to building a structure.’

(Editor’s Note: Philip de Vellis was born and raised in the Palisades, where he attended Marquez Elementary School, Paul Revere Junior High School and Palisades High School.) For nearly six months, Philip de Vellis has been campaigning for the Democratic National Committee in Ohio. Having served in two different directorial positions, de Vellis has gained experience and insight that provide a close look at the critical swing state’s political atmosphere leading up to the election. ”When he received his first assignment as canvass director for the Cleveland office of Grassroots Campaigns at the end of May, de Vellis says he ‘barely knew where Cleveland or Ohio were on the map, but I was aware that this state would play a decisive role in this election.’ ”’No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio. In 2000, Gore lost this state by only 3.5 percent even after pulling all his staff and commercials off the air six weeks before Election Day. It’s dumbfounding to think that if we’d invested a little more energy here last time, then Florida would have been irrelevant.’ ”As canvass director, de Vellis managed ‘an ever-evolving group of 25-30 canvassers with the help of four assistant directors’ whose primary goal was to run door-to-door fundraising drives for the DNC in the Cleveland area. ‘But we had the added responsibility of representing the party in this critical battleground state.’ ”In his current position as regional volunteer director for Ohio Victory 2004 (the Ohio coordinated campaign), de Vellis recruits and trains volunteers with the five volunteer coordinators in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and 50 other municipalities. ”’Cuyahoga County has the largest concentration of Democratic votes in the state, and a high turnout on election day is required to carry the state,’ he says. ‘This area has been especially hard hit under the Bush Administration. Cleveland is now the poorest big city in America and suffers heavily from the outsourcing of factory jobs overseas.’ ”So while it is exciting for de Vellis to be in this critical location during the election, he says, ‘It is depressing to see what a bleak future young people face here.’ ”A graduate of Palisades High School, de Vellis attended University of Massachusetts Amherst and earned his bachelor’s degree in history from UCLA in 1996. Having worked for the past five years as an editor and graphic designer in television and commercials, de Vellis says, ‘I’ve always been a news junkie, and worked as a volunteer for the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign, but kept politics as a hobby until I was swept into the enthusiasm of Howard Dean’s primary campaign early last year.’ ”During the primary season, de Vellis organized several large events for then Vermont Gov. Dean’s campaign, including a project that brought 600 volunteers from across the West to the early nominating contests in Arizona and New Mexico. ‘After the disappointing loss of my candidate [Dean] and a two-week European vacation, I headed back onto the campaign trail as the Cleveland canvass director,’ he says. ”In this position, de Vellis observed that fundraising was relatively easy at first, in the eastern suburbs of Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, which he says are ‘filled with educated, middle-class liberals.’ However, ‘that territory soon expired…and the reality of the Rust Belt sunk in.’ ”He learned that fundraising was a difficult task in Cuyahoga County, where the unemployment rate was ‘well above the national average’ at about 6.8 percent, while ‘Cleveland proper had a staggering 15 percent of its citizens unemployed. These figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Once this city had over one million residents, but now has shrunk to half that size. Large portions of Cleveland now lay abandoned and there are only a few blocks in the entire city with houses worth more than $100,000.’ ”De Vellis says that the ad in the Plain Dealer newspaper classifieds that his team used to recruit canvassers generated over 120 calls a day for a job that only paid $300-$500 a week with no benefits. ‘Our applicants ran the gamut from laid-off plant managers, teachers, factory workers and college kids to fast-food workers, high school dropouts and ex-cons. Most had a sincere desire to beat Bush, but they all needed the money just as much. ”’Many times we questioned the wisdom of such an enterprise in this area, but I was reminded of how Howard Dean used fundraising to solidify his supporters by getting them to invest in his campaign,’ de Vellis says. ‘I was surprised at first when I met a Republican willing to donate to the Democratic Party. Later I received contributions daily from Republicans and Independents who not only wanted to give us their vote, but the [money]. In fact, the largest donation I received at the door’a $1,000 check’came from a registered Republican.’ ”Yet de Vellis says that the smaller donations were more important to him. By adding their names to the over 50,000 DNC contributors that Grassroots Campaigns gathered each week, donors ‘were demonstrating that our campaign was funded by average citizens, not multimillionaires who can afford to write $25,000 checks to the Republican National Committee.’ ”In order to make the canvassing team, a canvasser had to raise at least $100 on his or her first three days on the job. ‘While this is a simple task in cities like San Francisco, where canvassers average over $300 a day, it can be a herculean effort in this town,’ de Vellis says. ‘We had to let many dedicated and educated people go, because they couldn’t scrounge more than $40 a night from these suburbs.’ ”Other canvassers ‘left the job out of frustration after having too many conversations with Democrats who thought that posting a John Kerry lawn sign should excuse them from even contributing $5 to our campaign.’ ”Now working on the volunteer side, de Vellis says, ‘We need volunteers to carry out many diverse tasks for the campaign, including phone banking [campaigning by phone], canvassing, and staffing events that include the candidates and well-known surrogates like Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbroke and Puff Daddy.’ ”Specifically, de Vellis runs the program for out-of-state travelers coming to Cuyahoga County to campaign for Kerry. ‘Every morning, new staffers and volunteers arrive from out-of-state to our office,’ he says. ‘We need to recruit 2,000 to 6,000 for November 2. The scale of this operation is daunting.’ ”Local residents are also becoming more interested in the campaign as election day nears.’A shipment of 10,000 yard signs flew out the door in three days,’ says de Vellis, who recently began planning phone bank operations for the big day. ‘Edwards and Kerry are constantly visiting the state. The level of intensity grows every hour.’ ”With the atmosphere changing daily, de Vellis says that ‘the debates have completely changed the race. Thousands of supporters watched the [VP] debate outside the hall [Case Western Reserve University’s Veale Center in Cleveland] on a very cold night and cheered Edwards at a midnight rally. It was a great experience to be a part of. Our supporters are much more confident about our chances. We just have to keep on pushing in the coming days. Only a fool would expect anything less than a nail-biter in the end.’ ”On election day, de Vellis will be working as a regional phone bank coordinator, calling registered voters and helping to reach the DNC’s goal of making 150,000 phone calls in Cuyahoga County on that day. ”No matter what the outcome, de Vellis, age 31, says he feels his experiences will be worthwhile. ‘I do think, however, that this country’is ready for a change, but some people still need a nudge. Television commercials or mass mailing won’t sway them. Talking to these undecided voters one-on-one is the only way we can win for sure