A proposed preferential parking district on the streets surrounding the business district and the Palisades Recreation Center will be discussed at the Community Council meeting on Thursday, July 22 at 7 p.m. in the Branch Library’s community room, 861 Alma Real. Emilie Baradi, a transportation engineer with the L.A. Department of Transportation, will speak about the proposal by residents whose on-street parking has been diminished by spillover from the Palisades business district and activities at the park. Last December, these residents requested applications for preferential parking for the following streets: * Carthage between Swarthmore and Via de la Paz. Residents are applying to be exempt from the existing two-hour parking from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, plus no parking from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., except by permit. * Radcliffe between Haverford and Bowdoin, two-hour parking 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, except by permit. * Alma Real between Toyopa and Frontera, two-hour parking 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, except by permit. * Monument between Albright and Bestor, two-hour parking 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, except by permit. If approved, the boundaries for the preferential parking district will extend at least two blocks beyond the areas that have requested it. Now that the proposed district has met DOT criteria, the DOT will seek input from Cindy Miscikowski’s City Council office and will solicit feedback from the community before approving the establishment of this district. ‘The Community Council meeting is prior to the public hearing,’ said Monique Ford, field deputy for Miscikowski’s West L.A. office. ‘The DOT would like to get a consensus from community leaders.’ Depending on the response, DOT may rectify issues or, if there is strong opposition, they may not go forward. Otherwise, a public hearing will be set, at which time affected businesses and residents of the district (within 300 feet) will have an opportunity for comment. Jack Allen, the Community Council’s advisor on governmental affairs, has sent a report on the preferential parking issue to council members, detailing his opposition. ‘Once it’s allowed, it spreads like chicken pox and neighbors can’t immunize themselves against it,’ he argues. ‘Sure, all those parkers who clog up their streets now will be gone but residents must purchase permits if any vehicles are to be parked on the street.’ ‘The first problem to be solved,’ Allen says, ‘is the critical shortage of parking in the Village and at the Palisades Recreation Center.’ Council chairman Norman Kulla told the Palisadian-Post: ‘Jack’s memo certainly persuaded me to be cautious about preferential parking approaches. It has untoward affects and can make things worse. We have a huge problem already with respect to lack of parking. ‘On the other hand, the homeowners who have people parking in front of their homes have genuine concerns.’

Gloria Martinez, former UCLA professor in the Educational Leadership Program and Malibu High School vice principal, has been selected the new principal at Palisades High School. Martinez will become the first principal in the independent charter school’s new leadership team, which will also include an executive director. The West Los Angeles resident was chosen from a final field of four candidates who were screened and interviewed by the school’s Board of Governors last month. Born and raised in Whittier, Martinez earned her doctorate from UCLA in education with a focus on the so-called achievement gap in public schools. She then taught at St. Bernard High School, a racially diverse co-educational school in Playa del Rey, before moving to Malibu High eight years ago. She taught Spanish for five years, then served as vice principal. According to outgoing Principal Mike Matthews, who is now assistant superintendent with the Santa Monica School District, Martinez achieved two notable successes as an administrator. ‘Gloria is a very follow-through person and gets things done,’ said Matthews. ‘Her best work came in solving a crisis Malibu was having in Special Education. We were not doing what we needed to do. Gloria made sure that every teacher understood what the needs were and deserves credit for bringing our school from being deficient to being a model. She is a leader in special education and all the teachers appreciated her support.’ ‘Gloria wrote her dissertation on the achievement gap, but she didn’t just leave it in the academic realm,’ Matthews continued. ‘She found ways to implement it on a practical level. She brought the AVID (Advance Via Individual Determination) program to the school. This program targets kids with potential but who aren’t going to be college-bound unless intervention happens. Malibu is now on the way to become a demonstration school.’ Martinez will concern herself with the academic and student life at 2,560-student PaliHi. Monday night, July 19, the Board of Governors will meet to determine the new leadership structure particularly the role of the executive director.

By ELAINE CHOI Palisadian-Post Intern Some of the fondest memories of childhood are those visits to the ice cream parlor when you watched through the glass as the server scooped out your favorite flavor, pressed it down into the cone, smiled and handed you this special treat. Palisadians have now been enjoying this tradition at the Baskin-Robbins store on Swarthmore for 50 years. With 31 ice cream flavors available from the nearly 1,000 choices that are continually rotated across the country, a customer can try a different flavor every day of the month. Of all those flavors, Mint Chocolate Chip and Jamoca Almond Fudge reign as the town’s favorites. Among the youth, flavors inspired by movies and holidays are the most popular, including the new Shrek flavors and rainbow sherbet. New flavors are constantly being invented and recreated such as the Donkey Gone Bananas Sundae, Fiona’s Fairytale (pink and purple swirled cotton-candy flavor), Puss in Boots Chocolate Mousse (white chocolate mousse, milk chocolate and chocolate ice creams loaded with chocolate chips and chocolate-covered pretzels), and Shrek’s Swirl (green-colored grape sherbet and purple-colored green apple sherbet loaded with popping candy). Baskin Robbins first opened here on March 31, 1954, nine years after the chain’s first store debuted in Glendale. There are now over 4,500 locations throughout the world, making it the largest chain of ice cream specialty stores. In the U.S. alone, more than 150 million ice cream cones are served every year. Chris Fracchiolla, a father of two and a Palisades resident since 1994, bought the store three years ago after a career in playwriting (notably ‘Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding,’ co-created in 1988 with his wife, Nancy Cassaro). ‘I wanted something else in the community that was especially around kids because I work a lot with kids,’ said Fracchiolla, who is a Sunday school teacher and children’s nursery leader at United Methodist Church. ‘I heard the store was for sale and it just felt like the right thing for me and my family. We have always loved this community and the ‘small-town’ qualities. For us the store has always been a kind of ground zero for that good old-fashioned Palisades feeling.’ The dieting craze that is sweeping the country has had little impact on his sales because ‘people still love their ice cream,’ Fracchiolla said. Nor did the Haagen-Dazs store on Sunset have much effect; in fact, ever since Haagen-Dazs closed in February, there has been virtually no change in the number of ice cream cones or cakes sold at Baskin-Robbins. Another popular ice cream franchise, Cold Stone Creamery, which opened in 1988 in Tempe, Arizona, and has grown to 650 stores nationwide, has also had little local impact because the Baskin-Robbins store here has been the Palisades tradition for such a long time. ‘Our store has become a hangout for kids,’ Fracchiolla said. ‘There’s also a lot of Pacific Palisades loyalty, so people continue to keep coming here. He added, ‘We have a big business in cakes too, especially for birthdays and graduations.’ June was especially busy because of all the end-of-the-year school parties and graduations. More than 120 unique cake designs are available, with different sizes to suit any occasion or celebration. In 2000, Baskin-Robbins launched its freeze-frame cakes to turn any picture into a cake design using edible ink and paper. Well before going into the ice cream business, Fracchiolla and his wife Nancy wrote their off-Broadway play, ‘Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding,’ which follows the nuptials of two working-class Italian New Yorkers and their wacky, diverse families. Among the bizarre events that take place, the father of the groom gets in a fist fight with the mother of the bride as the newlyweds take off together. The production ‘has played around the world as a cult classic for 15 years,’ the Hollywood Reporter noted a year ago. The Fracchiollas have two children, 8-year-old Alice and 10-year-old John, who attend Palisades Elementary. Nancy is still an actress (guest appearances in ‘Nip/Tuck’) and writer (co-credit on the screenplay for ‘The Devil and Daniel Webster’) while Chris has become more involved in volunteer work. He helps run two after-school programs, and has also been coaching a Palisades Pony Baseball team (the Baskin-Robbins Indians) while staying involved in Cub Scouts. To celebrate his store’s 50th anniversary and maintain its ‘good old-fashioned’ feeling, Fracchiolla has begun a history wall at the store. Anyone with copies of photographs or favorite recollections of the store are encouraged to bring them to Chris.

Fifty years ago, R. Buckminster Fuller obtained the patent for his most famous invention’ the geodesic dome, and this month the U.S. Postal Service will issue a commemorative postage stamp honoring the legendary American inventor, architect, engineer, designer, geometrician, cartographer and philosopher. Fuller lived in the Palisades from the late ’70s until his death in 1983. Fuller’s papers are archived at Stanford University, where the first-day-of-issue ceremony will be held on Fuller’s birthday, July 12. Hailed as ‘one of the greatest minds of our times,’ Fuller was renowned for his comprehensive perspective on the world’s problems,’ said Anita Bizzotto, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, U.S. Postal Service, who will dedicate the stamp. Scheduled to join Bizzotto at the ceremony are Fuller’s daughter, Palisadian Allegra Fuller Snyder, professor emerita, Dance and Dance Ethnology at the UCLA, and Dr. Buzz Aldrin, astronaut, Gemini 12 and Apollo 11, among others. “What excites me is the opportunity to introduce many new people to him and get them asking questions about who he was and why he deserves a postage stamp,” said Fuller Snyder, a Palisades resident since 1963, whose parents were frequent visitors to the Palisades before moving here themselves. “He really felt that we had the know-how and the technology to really make life better for all humanity,’ she said. ‘He talked about doing more and more with less and less. He felt that the trends were possible in so many directions, that we had the tools and material to build a lightweight and inexpensive home that would provide more than adequate real shelter for people. Most of the issues that are central now’energy, sustainability, education’he explored very early on. He tried to urge us to know about them, when people weren’t paying attention to them at all.” The stamp artwork is a painting of Fuller by Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965). The painting, which originally appeared on the cover of Time magazine on Jan. 10, 1964, depicts Fuller’s head in the pattern of a geodesic dome. Geodesic domes and a number of his other inventions surround Fuller, including the Dymaxion Car, the 4D Apartment House and several objects and models that reflect the geometric and structural principles he discovered. Born in Milton, Massachusetts, in 1895, Richard Buckminster Fuller belonged to a family noted for producing strong individualists inclined toward activism and public service. ‘Bucky,’ as he came to be called, developed an early understanding of nature during family excursions to Bear Island, Maine, where he also became familiar with the principles of boat maintenance and construction. Fuller served in the U.S. Navy from 1917 to 1919, where he demonstrated an aptitude for engineering. He invented a winch for rescue boats that could pull airplanes out of the ocean in time to save the lives of pilots. Because of the invention, Fuller was nominated to receive officer training at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he further developed his abilities. In 1926, when Fuller’s father-in-law, James Monroe Hewlett, developed a new way of manufacturing reinforced concrete buildings, he and Fuller patented the invention together, earning Fuller the first of his 25 patents. Fuller’s lifelong interests included using technology to revolutionize construction and improve housing. He designed the Dymaxion House, an inexpensive, mass-produced home that could be airlifted to its location; the Dymaxion Car, a streamlined, three-wheeled automobile that could make extraordinarily sharp turns; a compact, prefabricated, easily installed Dymaxion Bathroom; and Dymaxion Deployment Units (DDUs), mass-produced houses based on the silo shape. The word ‘dymaxion’ was coined by store advertisers and trademarked in Fuller’s name. Based on the words ‘dynamic,’ ‘maximum’ and ‘ion,’ it became a part of the name of many of Fuller’s subsequent inventions. In 1927, Fuller made a now-prophetic sketch of the total earth which depicted his concept for transporting cargo by air ‘over the pole’ to Europe. He entitled the sketch ‘a onetown world.’ In 1946, Fuller received a patent for another breakthrough invention: the Dymaxion Map, which depicted the entire planet on a single flat map without visible distortion of the relative shapes and sizes of the continents. After 1947, the geodesic dome dominated Fuller’s life and career. Lightweight, cost-effective and easy to assemble, geodesic domes enclose more space without intrusive supporting columns than any other structure, efficiently distribute stress, and can withstand extremely harsh conditions. Based on Fuller’s ‘synergetic geometry,’ his lifelong exploration of nature’s principles of design, the geodesic dome was the result of his revolutionary discoveries about balancing compression and tension forces in building. Fuller applied for a patent for the geodesic dome in 1951 and received it in 1954. Beginning in the late 1960s, Fuller was especially involved in creating World Game, a large-scale simulation and series of workshops he designed that used a large-scale Dymaxion Map to help humanity better understand, benefit from, and more efficiently utilize the world’s resources. After being spurned early in his career by the architecture and construction establishments, Fuller was later recognized with many major architectural, scientific, industrial, and design awards, both in the United States and abroad, and he received 47 honorary doctorate degrees. In 1983, shortly before his death, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, with a citation acknowledging that his ‘contributions as a geometrician, educator and architect-designer are benchmarks of accomplishment in their fields.’ Stamps will be available at U.S. Post Offices throughout the country commencing July 13.