WestchesterParents

This is bad news for tomorrows parents if it is approved.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that UC officials are thinking about increasing the number of out-of-state students because they pay the higher out-of-state tuitions, roughly $20,000 a year or more. In-state students pay about $8,100 per year.

UC schools such as UCLA charge higher tuitions to out-of-state students because the families of California’s in-state students have been paying for those public universities since 1868 through property taxes.

Increasing the number of out-of-state students would reduce the number of seats available for otherwise qualified students of California families who have paid into the system for decades.

If UC schools are going to break that longstanding promise with California residents and admit more out-of-state students at our children’s expense, it makes perfect sense to me that California’s taxpayers stop funding UC schools entirely.

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The Los Angles Times has a story on regulating consumer LCD TV’s.  In the article they describe 52″ LCD flat screen TV’s as “energy hogs.”

First I’ll say that I don’t own a 52″ LCD TV or anything close to it. However I sure wish I did!

Not one to take anything in the media for granted anymore, I decided to Google 52″ LCD TV’s and the first thing I found was a Sony BRAVIA KDL-52XBR6. Its power consumption was rated at 295 watts. For comparison I checked my ”tube” TV and it consumes 220 watts. I also have an AM/FM stereo that is 195 watts. 

295 watts seems to be pretty reasonable for a large set so why are state regulators targeting 52″ LCD TV’s?

The City of Los Angeles recently agreed that billboard companies can ‘convert’ 877 of their regular billboards that are usually equipped with simple three light fixtures to digital boards. Those digital billboards are reportedly 50,000 watts a piece which is 44 million watts total or the equivalent of 148,644 52″ LCD TV’s or 584,677 incandescent light bulbs at 75 watts each.

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Beware Westchester and Playa del Rey. Under our current mayors administration, little neighborhoods like this are being closely looked at to further not-so-smart growth.

This is what Jane Usher is talking about when she writes to Villaraigosa in her resignation saying “Please reject any proposed update that relies on the careless, sprawl-inducing approach of adding density at every Rapid bus stop; this would be unnecessarily hostile to many of our appropriately low- rise residential neighborhoods that also reside along our long, multi-faceted corridors.”

D.J. Waldie writes about Jane Ushers resignation from the city planning commission at KCET’s Where We Are Blog. (The emphasis in the following text is mine.)

Kevin Roderick (at his LA Observed site) nominates Jane Usher’s resignation from the city’s planning commission as the political farewell likely to resonate most in 2009. Her still warm seat on the commission was filled by Sean O. Burton. I don’t have to tell you that Burton is both politically connected and development smart.

But don’t mistake that as being smart about growth. Usher, as commission president, surely knew what sort of insider would replace her after she suggested that Los Angeles residents could sue the city over development policies hostile to their neighborhoods.

Roderick’s reading of Usher’s resignation letter is characteristically blunt: She “essentially called BS on the mayor’s approach to letting developers build wherever a bus might someday pass, in the name of transit friendly growth.” Blunt but also correct.

In a city that was essentially “built out” by the mid-1970s, the growth machine has struggled to find product to pitch. There are no more tracts of little houses to sell. Downtown redevelopment took up some of the slack in the 1980s and 1990s, but now there’s nowhere left but the city’s endless miles of older neighborhoods. In each of them, there are modest, low-rise retail strips, small commercial centers, and disused manufacturing sites that can be cynically reimagined to be ideal locations for “transit-oriented development.”

As Usher warned Mayor Villaraigosa in her letter of resignation, “Our shared goal . . . demands that we build vertically, but only in my view at major commercial or employment centers or within walking distance of locations where we have or will provide a substantial mass transit stop. We still need . . . to define these sites with precision, a controversial process because it requires us to identify land use winners and losers – an essential task that our government has shied from. Please reject any proposed update that relies on the careless, sprawl-inducing approach of adding density at every Rapid bus stop; this would be unnecessarily hostile to many of our appropriately low- rise residential neighborhoods that also reside along our long, multi-faceted corridors.”

Winner and losers . . . Usher’s coded phrase isn’t only about the fate of particular neighborhoods (which might be a winner or a loser in an unruly rush to greater density). It’s also about which developers (and consultants and lawyers and city council members) will win or lose in the high-stakes Monopoly game that is land use planning in Los Angeles.

The game has never had any place at the board for you. It’s always been the machine’s game.

The growth machine has been processing the landscape of L.A. for more than 100 years. Its practices are embedded in the DNA of the city. At times, the machine’s aims have appeared to be all that there is of the city – in each generation, what we want Los Angeles to be is turned into a sales pitch for the same old illusions about building a better paradise. The marriage of political juice and naïve utopianism has always made money for someone in L.A. using the same old bait and switch.

Tags: GENERAL, MANAGING GROWTH, TRAFFIC // 2 Comments »

Our elected city representatives don’t like it when residents criticize them for placing an expensive risky measure on the city’s March elections. In fact, Mayor Villaraigosa and the city council are suing them in what looks like an effort to intimidate them. I’m not a lawyer but it sound’s like an anti-SLAPP suit needs to be filed against the city.

Measure B -

There is plenty to criticize about on this measure. Measure B, the so-called The Green Energy and Green Jobs for Los Angeles Act purports that it will install 400 megawatts of solar panels on roof tops throughout the city. This is two and a half times the total solar installation of the entire state of California and they are estimating that they will do it for $1.5 billion with all work being done by IBEW employees and without competitive bidding.

A recent internal analysis by a city-hired consulting firm PA Consulting Group called the “called the solar plan ‘extremely risky’ and considerably more expensive than was being portrayed” by the DWP.”

The consulting firm reported that the LADWP cost estimate of the project was far too low and that a job of such magnitude should cost closer to $3.6 Billion.

If the price tag climbs that high, the pass-through costs to residents would have to climb 4% per year to a maximum of 12%. This is on top of the electricity rate hikes that have already been imposed on us to hire new cops. Cops that we are not going to see since the city is now $400 million in the red.

Same old talking points

Not surprisingly the city is pulling out many of the same worn out talking points used in other ballot measures. In this case they argue that the Green Solar measure will ‘Save Lives’ by reducing air pollution and smog by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

What they don’t tell you is they are not substituting green solar power in place of fossil fuel power, they are adding 400 MW of solar energy to the current grid to meet the needs of a projected 1.5 million new residents they want to shoehorn into the city. Whatever air pollution reductions ‘Green’ might be responsible for will be erased by the vehicles brought into the city by these new residents.

The city also argues that it will generate “new business” and “jobs outside of the area.” I don’t know why it is important that we generate new jobs outside of the area but again it’s what they don’t tell you in the talking points made for public consumption. That new business and those jobs outside the area are from the purchase of solar hardware coming from China.

That fact alone turns another talking point on its head, that the measure will make “Los Angeles a Center for Solar Technology” comparing it to Silicon Valley. If the technology is coming from China, how is it that L.A. will be the Center for Solar Technology? Additionally, comparing silicon and all of its offshoot technologies found in everything from cell phones, refrigerators, TV’s and cars to rooftop solar photovoltaic’s is a real stretch of the imagination.

Measure B’s proponents also claim that it will “create hundreds of good, family supporting jobs in Los Angeles with good benefits.” Hundreds of jobs? That’s hardly the kind of economic stimulus one might expect of any multi-billion dollar plan in a city of 4 million people. Those few jobs will be government jobs.

The residents alerting us to the fraud and targeted in the SLAP suit are those that signed the ballot argument against Measure (or Prop) B.

They are Jack Humphreville and Soledad Garcia (DWP Watchdog Committee), Humberto Camacho (former vice president of the United Electrical Workers Union), Kristine Lee, Nick Patsaouras (former head of the Water and Power Commission), Joe Pulido, James O’Sullivan and Ron Kaye (former Daily News editor).

Los Angeles Times story: Analysis calls ambitious L.A. solar plan ‘extremely risky’

[Read more →]

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I’m told that Santa will be in the neighborhood once again on Friday, December 19th 2008 so if you missed him last week you have a great chance of catching up with him Friday night.

With the help of the Los Angeles Fire and Police Departments, Santa will make his way through the streets of Westchester riding on a special LAPD sleigh, waving to children, handing out candy and posing for photographs.

His route will begin in North Kentwood at 4:30 PM. Santa will visit streets between Nancy Street and 77th Street: Olglesby, McCool, Kentwood, Firebrand, Wynkoop, Cowan, and Henefer.

Then at 6:00 PM, you’ll find him in Westport Heights on streets between Naylor Ave and Flight Ave: 74th street, 75th Street, 75th Place, 76th Street, Piper Place and Piper Ave between 74th Street and 76th Street.

If it rains that evening, Santa will be at the new Fire Station #5, 8900 Emerson Ave at 6:00PM.

Santa’s trip is being sponsored by Playa Sunrise Rotary International. For more information you can call 310-306-8525.

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The Los Angeles Time’s reports that “Retailers Forever 21 Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. won a joint bid to move into 46 soon-to-be-empty Mervyns stores, the chains said Friday. ”

The Orange County Register notes that the Mervyn’s Westchester site is one of the stores that Kohl’s will be moving into.

Tags: GENERAL // 1 Comment »

“Duke…why don’t you quit your complaining and start coming up with some solutions?”

OK! Here are three things I would like to see in Westchester, Playa Del Rey….

A Westchester/Playa Del Rey Trolley System: This could begin with “rubber wheeled” trackless trolleys, as Fresno and Monterey, CA have done. The routes would go between these points: Loyola Marymount University: both the Loyola Blvd. and LMU Drive gates, Ralph’s Grocery on Lincoln Boulevard, Jefferson and Lincoln, Howard Hughes Center, Sepulveda and Manchester Boulevards, and Culver and Vista Del Mar in Playa Del Rey.

The routes would take more passenger cars off the roads, and run a loop-line past some of the most popular spots in town: Lincoln Boulevard, Playa Del Rey, Howard Hughes Center, and Downtown Westchester. These are 20-30 passenger trolleys, burn natural gas and come delivered with AC and heaters. For $1.00; .50 for Seniors/students with valid I.D./kids under 12, you could ride the route anytime—round-trip, and hail the trolley at any corner along the routes: Lincoln, Sepulveda, 80th and Manchester. The “TURN-A-ROUNDS” would be at Howard Hughes Center, Del Rey Lagoon, and Ralph’s Grocery/El Dorado Bowl parking lot. It’s no coincidence, or course, that these spots are active stops for regular local and long distance METRO and other scheduled bus service, “feeding” longer distance commuters. Sumitomo Light Rail and Geofocus, who built the electric cars for the Blue and Green lines of Los Angeles METRO, have the logistics infrastructure in place to make this happen, (pardon the shameless, self-serving plug).

I call it; D.R.R.A.T.; Del Rey Rapid Area Transit. During summer months, we could run two additional “SURF” routes; running seasonal “spurs” down Vista Del Mar to Highland, and another extending to Marina Del Rey: stopping at both The Waterside at Marina del Rey and Fisherman’s’ Village. Cars could be wheel chair friendly, and sport bike, surf board, fishing pole, and golf club racks, and recycling/trash bins. Imagine your children simply going to a corner and hailing a trolley; or LMU students utilizing these trolleys to shop at local markets, Playa Vista, travel to local dining spots, or riding up and down the hill to see a movie at The Bridge? I could have this up and running in 90 days, and profitable in six months.

[Read more →]

Tags: GENERAL, One Reader Writes... // 1 Comment »

After a one year hiatus, the Holiday Street Parade is back in town and everyone is invited!

The 9th Annual Holiday Street Parade hosted by S.T.A.R will be on December 14th, 2008 beginning at 2:00 PM. The parade route follows Manchester Ave starting at Loyola Blvd and ends at McConnell. 

Parade organizers are telling us that Santa Clause is expected to be in the parade.

Tags: ACTIVITIES // Add Comment »

We are told that on Thursday, December 11th 2008, he will be stopping for 15-30 minutes at each of the following locations:

4:30 - Playa del Rey lagoon
5:30 - Los Angeles Police Academy (Manchester Ave and Osage)
6:00 - Croydon between 83rd St and 85th St.
6:15 - 6700 81st St. (West of Emerson)
6:45 - 81st St. and Emerson Ave.
7:15 - Dunbarton Ave. at Altamore Dr.
7:45 - West 85th Pl, West of McConnell Ave.
8:15 - West 85th St, West of Rayford Dr.
8:45 - West 81st St at 83rd St.

Actual stops can vary 15 to 30 minutes. The Sleigh will not be out if it is raining.

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Soon to light up your living room, Clear Channel is installing another monster bladerunner type digital billboard on the corner of Lincoln and 83rd.

You can thank Rocky Delgadillo and members of the city council (Rosendahl has recently come out against them) for this incredible intrusiveness into our community. 

A recent “settlement” allows billboard companies to convert 800 conventional billboards to these things. 18 have been converted in CD 11 so far. In Westchester, Clear Channel has put up 3 digital boards, all without any public comment from the community.

Other reading:

• (L.A.Times) An advertisement for fighting L.A.’s excess of billboards
• AIA Supports Moratorium on Digital Billboards
• L.A. Lawsuit Settlement Exempts Digital Billboards From Zoning Regulations
• Should Digital Billboards Undergo Environmental Review? Building Department Says “No”, Council Members Say “Not So Fast”
• Is Eric Garcetti Trying To Rewrite History?
• (LA Weekly) Digital Billboards Become a Bohemian Blasphemy 
• (LA Weekly) Billboards Gone Wild: 4,000 Illegal Billboards Choke L.A.’s Neighborhoods

Tags: OUR ENVIRONMENT // 1 Comment »