WestchesterParents

Ouch… the folks at this blog got a little testy when we linked to their construction coverage list.

They called us a banana!  For those who aren’t familiar with the word, BANANA is an acronym meaning “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone”.  Similar to NIMBY or Not In My Back Yard.

It really wasn’t personal.. we just liked the list.  We thought it was a great one click reference to all that construction downtown and elsewhere that would normally take hours to research.

But apparently they took issue to it. Probably when we referred to it as a huge list of housing units that are likely to further burden the water supply in southern California.

I can understand their testiness. Living downtown will do that to you. Just thinking about having to go downtown makes me cranky.

And living down there?? Those tall buildings block out the sun for the better part of the day and that will make you a bit cranky.  And that traffic. So would having to step over strangers as you try to make you way down the sidewalk to the one and only Ralph’s market. 

And advising friends that they will need to use public transit when they visit your million dollar loft must be just downright awkward.  Count your lucky stars that you have any kind of parking though.. the godfather of smart growth wants to get rid of that to.  The person or couple living downtown would also have to pretty committed to not having children while they are there. It’s difficult to imagine raising a child with no nearby parks, surrounded by failing schools, and no place to ride a bicycle. The concrete jungle is a brutal place. 

Of course we don’t think we’re banana unless of course it’s a 40 story building that someone wants to put in our back yards, then admittedly, we’re strongly banana. We’re also banana if our city leaders plan to shoehorn 5.3 million people in our city. We don’t think that’s wise. 

We like good developments because good developments bring renewal to a community.  They invigorate and that’s important. 

When housing development is done recklessly, it can seriously damage the quality of life in a community.

The ignorance of today’s planners and policymakers towards our water resources reminds me of the story of the gal who was trying to purchase something with a check and was just informed that her check came back with non-sufficient funds. Indignant at the news, she replied “Well how can that be? I still have more checks!”

Our city officials seem to think the same way. It’s hard to bank water when it’s consumed faster than nature can supply it. When you have a faucet in your home it’s hard to imagine that your account can be overdrawn. What better way of creating more consumption than by building more housing requiring more connections to the limited supply.

Ignorance is bliss and it’s dangerous. Good developments need to have good solid planning behind them or we are in a world of hurt.

Posted on November 30th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: MANAGING GROWTH
3 Comments »

When the Neighborhood Council of Westchester Playa del Rey voted to support the formal creation of an autonomous cluster of schools known as the the LMU Family of Schools (FoS), one of the neighborhood councils conditions was that the FoS would be “governed by a board of directors which broadly represented the community (the neighborhood stakeholders), Loyola Marymount University and the stakeholders at the school (teachers, parents)”

However, since that vote on June 5th, there has been no outreach to the neighborhood stakeholders to this date. 

This evening at the LMU/iDivision Town Hall, a young Westchester mother with preschool aged children asked how she could vote on the proposal since the voting targeted specifically parents with children already enrolled and teachers. Having not been asked to vote myself I couldn’t help but concur.  When I had an opportunity to speak, I remarked that the current voting method was far too narrow in scope and I asked why the entire community of 40,000 residents had not been asked to vote on the proposal? 

AFTERALL, OUR SCHOOLS ARE A BIG DEAL and everyone SHOULD BE ASKED TO VOTE on this.  Not just those who are enrolled there today including those who don’t live in the enrollment areas and attend on permits. Half of all the schools students quit before they reach their senior year.  

Everyone of the homeowners and renters have a genuine stake in our schools since they pay directly or indirectly in school taxes and school building bonds.

I have two sons in one of our wonderful parochial middle schools and I wasn’t asked to vote on this even though I had been actively trying to reform our public schools since 1997 just so that they could go to Westchester High School and I am on the neighborhood council and on the education committee as well.  

Kathi Littmann of the iDivision said they (iDivision and LMU) decided to minimized the voting to the school staff and parents because they did not know how or whether they should include renters, business owners, and others.

Of course her decision unwisely left out our communities future parents, parents of alumni, parents of private school children, grandparents, who hoped to send their children to our local high school (if the school offered more opportunities and better academic performance), singles, and property owners that simply wanted to see their local school performance increase their home values.

In the next couple of months there is supposed to be a vote by stakeholders at each of the schools where, if passed by 50% or greater, those schools will enter into partnership with the LAUSD iDivision and LMU to operate the schools. This new partnership will enable the schools to:

• Receive 100% of the average daily attendance (ADA) funding instead of the roughly 50% they get now.
• Will allow teachers to continue to be represented by UTLA and keep their benefits.
• Will allow local governing bodies interview and hire teachers, principals, and other staff exclusively.

However there have been no guarantees that our schools would be allowed to operate completely independent of the downtown district in such matters as:

• Number of permit students allowed.
• Whether governing boards still have to allow charters when there is surplus space on its campuses.
• Whether the campuses can set total school capacity.

Currently, these issues and others are all decided downtown.

Our community must have an equal roll in the governance of our schools if they expect the community to rally around our public schools.  Leaving the operations to Beaudry St. (LAUSD district offices), labor unions, and even in partnership with our beloved LMU is not enough.

Posted on November 29th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: ORVILLE WRIGHT MS, OUR SCHOOLS, WESTCHESTER HS
4 Comments »

In a previous post, I argued that the LAUSD could probably better spend our money offering elective courses for the technical arts/sciences than these trendy and frankly dumb ways to stop the profuse dropout rate.

Here is what $10 million dollars get you when the school board spends your money.  You’ll have to click on the picture at the right ->

Now.. if I was a dropout and I was wondering if I made the right decision to leave school after the 9th grade and for a moment thought I would visit the new cool new LAUSD MySpace web site for some encouragement to come back.. would this gesture convince me to head back to the classroom?

Locke HS, one of the approved groups on the LAUSD’s My Future, My Decision MySpace website demonstrated that MySpace has another problem that makes it an undesirable medium to reach out to youth people in need of counseling.

It’s the “6 degrees of separation” problem.  Just click on a friend, and then on a friends of a friend, and sooner or later you’ll start running into content that is not exactly suitable to a school district sponsored site.  One of the friends of a friend has a background with 9mm hand guns all over it. 

LAUSD needs to be able to control the message and you can’t do that in this kind of medium.

This school boards vision is all over the map. In this setting it seems as if they are trying to be a buddy instead of creating an institution that should be setting standards and leading by example.

Hopefully Steve Barr can improve things a bit at Locke.   

Posted on November 27th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS
1 Comment »

Westchester High school should give up the ‘Aerospace‘ designation in their magnet title and hand it over to a more deserving school, Monroe High school. While they’re at it they probably should give up the Math and Science designations as well since there is nothing out of the ordinary that this school provides that other regular high schools don’t or shouldn’t. 

Magnet’s should be offering something quite out of the ordinary like King Drew Medical magnet,  Dorsey High Law magnet or Hamilton High’s Academy of Music magnet.

I’ve been advocating for a time now that there should be more than one path to a real diploma.  A college bound path and a technical science/arts path.

Monroe HS at least recognizes that there is another path and it has an educator, Lewis Chappelear a former engineeer leading it. Kudos to the district for recognizing him.  Chappelear was named California Teacher of the Year with four others. We need more teachers like him.

According to the Los Angele Times article, the district heard that Chappelear started an electronics class. District officials heard about the course and were “searching for places to spend money earmarked for technology focused programs.”

Quoting the L.A. Times “One day they pulled up at Monroe, pulled Chappelear out of the class, and unexpectedly, asked him if he wanted to start an engineering program at the school”

“That was the first day of the rest of my career,” he said. “They gave me the freedom to build my dream program.”

What… money?? Did the Westchester Aerospace Magnet know about the districts interest in funding some school with an interest in Technology focused programs?

Had either principal Anita Barner or her previous predecessor Dana Perryman ever thought of trying to obtain a teacher with a technology focused interest?

The L.A. Times goes on to say that “Dozens of students also are enrolled in online classes at Cal State Northridge and have internships through a collaboration that Chappelear forged with local aerospace companies.”

Read the rest of the article at:  

ref; http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers25nov25,1,7979400.story

Posted on November 25th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: WESTCHESTER HS
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Two days after I used the R word here, the Los Angeles Times published an article by Hector Becerra titled Southland to buy farmers’ water citing that Rationing may be headed this way.

But even with the purchases, officials said, another parched winter would probably mean that the giant water importer would have to reduce supplies to local communities.

Such a move would probably mean that cities would raise water rates even further and begin rationing programs, which have not occurred in Southern California since the early 1990s.

The MWD’s own rates to customers, which include 26 communities and water agencies across Southern California, are locked in until early 2009. But if there were a cutback in the water delivered to local communities — particularly those that get most of their water from the district — water bills could jump in some cities sooner rather than later.

“Local agencies would determine how to ration water throughout the area,” Kightlinger said, adding that they could raise rates.

Now that the R word has been breached by our local press, our city leaders need to begin seriously thinking about the M word, as in building Moratorium.

Here are some suggestions for our elected officials on how to go about managing the current water supply problem until it is resolved:

1. Leave the water rates alone for households who are using less than 51,081 gallons per person. That 10% less than the average person today. These folks are already conserving.
2. Penalize the true water wasters. If a household is using more than 56,575 per person, then charge those units at the highest tier rate possible.
3. Limit water of all newly permitted high density housing to year 2050 allocations which I predict will be around 38,766 gallons per person. That includes those currently being built. Given that the average apartment or condo has 2.3 persons living in it, then cap their allotments at 89,161 gallons. Let’s see how smart smart growth can really be.
4. Issue a moratorium that would prohibit the conversion of any zoning designation to another of greater density. (i.e. R-1 to R-2 or greater; C1 to R-2 or greater; M-1 to R-2 or greater;  etc.)

Want to keep up with heady pace of construction downtown and elsewhere? Visit Angelenic for a huge list of housing units that are likely to further burden the water supply in southern California.

Posted on November 21st, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: GENERAL, MANAGING GROWTH, WATER
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After months of persistant complaints from a single Westchester resident, Councilman Rosendahl, Playa Vista officials and LAPD announced a collaborative effort to protect the bluffs and concrete drainage devices from loose pets.  

Taking a hardline against resident pet owners, canines and collaterally, responsible residents and kids who simply would like to be able to hike through the area, the city and Playa Vista installed 6 foot tall chain link fence along the entire eastern portion of Cabora Road to keep these pesky little pets and people from potentially trampling over monarch milkweed, sweet clover, buckwheat flower, pickleweed and other native plants.

Ironically this comes only months after the council office found itself at odds with Santa Monica officials when Mar Vista residents were not allowed to use a new dog park that the City of Santa Monica had built.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Kristen Coco
(310) 689-7539

CITY TO REDOUBLE EFFORTS TO ENHANCE PROTECTION OF WESTCHESTER BLUFFS; ENFORCEMENT OF DOG LEASH LAWS TO BE STEPPED UP ON CABORA ROAD

Joint enforcement effort to begin November 21, 2007

PLAYA VISTA, Calif. (November 20, 2007)-In cooperation with Westchester community leaders and City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl’s office, Playa Capital Company, LLC and the Los Angeles Police Department are redoubling efforts to enforce existing city laws prohibiting access onto the Westchester Bluffs from Cabora Road. The program includes increased enforcement of the City’s dog leash law for any people walking dogs on Cabora Road.

Pedestrians are welcome to walk along Cabora Road, but they may not trespass onto the bluffs. Dogs may also be walked on Cabora Road, but must remain on-leash at all times and are also strictly prohibited from entering the bluff areas.

Private security officers will patrol the area daily from dawn to dusk, and will work in conjunction with the LAPD to enforce the trespassing and dog-leash laws, and, if violations occur, issue citations.

To assist in the protection of the bluff area, a new six-foot chain link fence is now in place along the southern side of Cabora Road. The fence includes signage encouraging visitors to adhere to the city municipal codes related to trespassing and dog leash requirements. The fence will also help to prevent damage to the concrete drainage devices along the bluffs, which have recently been vandalized and marked by graffiti.

“Playa Capital Company has provided two dog parks in the community and has worked with the neighborhood to protect the bluffs area along Cabora Road,” Councilmember Bill Rosendahl said. “I would like to thank Playa Capital Company for listening to community members and creating a win-win solution for residents and visitors.”

“The Los Angeles Police Department is committed to working with Playa Capital Company, Councilmember Rosendahl and the local community to ensure the protection of the Westchester Bluffs and to promote safety for all people who walk along Cabora Road with or without their dogs. We ask that all visitors respectfully abide by the City’s clear requirements,” said LAPD Senior Lead Officer Heidi Llanes.

In recent months, a number of trespassers have been accessing the bluffs and have damaged some of the plants and brush, increasing the potential for erosion to occur. In addition, people have violated city regulations by allowing their dogs to run off-leash on Cabora Road and, in some instances, letting dogs run off-leash in the bluff areas. Restricting access will maintain the vegetation that helps to anchor the hillside during the rainy season and protect native plant habitat. Visitors are also advised to obey city law and properly dispose of their pet waste while visiting Cabora Road.

Posted on November 20th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: GENERAL, OUR ENVIRONMENT
9 Comments »

Mayor Villaraigosa got his photo op in today’s Los Angeles Times and behind him were members of the 15 strong Drought Busters. 

That should be enough drought busters to cover the seven council members who use well over 100,000 gallons each annually, the mayor himself who uses over 380,000 gallons annually and the city attorney Rocky Delgadillo uses an astounding 1,183 gallons per day! 

The Drought Busters could fine the mayor if he doesn’t cut back to 90% of his current usage which would mean he would have to make do with only 342,000 gallons.

But while the mayor and the other city leaders can be classified as water wasters, it’s not their personal use that is causing today’s water shortage problem – it’s their policies! Los Angeles has done an admirable job staying within our means over the last fifteen years but the current building binge threatens to undo all that.

Conservation or rationing?
With all of the building permits being issued for the ten of thousands of new high density housing units and affordable housing, you have to wonder if the cities residents are really being encouraged into conservation because of the ongoing drought or are we being herded into a permanent rationing program because of over development?

Water Facts
Since 1970 the city of Los Angeles has never received more than 531,000 acre feet of water (af) through its own aqueduct. The aqueduct has been highly unreliable in terms of a consistent supply of water because of highly fluctuating sierra snow pack. To augment this supply, the LADWP has had to rely on groundwater supplies and water imports from the Metropolitan Water District.

Between the three sources, LA’s water supply has never exceeded 707,548 af and despite $16.6 billion in state water bonds approved by voters that promised to “providing new water supplies and supporting water conservation programs” neither the state nor LADWP has been able to live up to that promise and increase supplies as the population continues to rise.

In 1970 the average LADWP resident received over 67,382 gallons each annually. That rose to 69,140 gallons in 1981. However during drought, water supplies fell to a record low of 562,037 af in 1992 and through conservation efforts, the average user received 52,569 gallons each. Today our water use has dropped further to 54,675 gallons annually per person.

No new supplies
Historical water supply levels along with a number of developing factors appear to indicate that we will not be able to increase the 1970 to 2006 average of 626,091 af water supply that we’ve been receiving. 

Those factors include court ordered redirecting of 40% of Los Angeles Aqueduct water back to Mono Lake and the Owens Valley, court ordered reduced pumping by MWD of Sacramento Delta water to protect the Delta Smelt and byright upstream consumption of water along the Colorado river by states such as Nevada.

But the largest factor that prohibits any increase in Los Angeles water supply have been the huge increases in housing developments in the surrounding southern California counties. Each of these counties rely almost entirely on MWD to supply their water.

Because of the inability of the LADWP and the MWD to be able to increase water supplies necessary for the growth that our city leaders insist on, and as LA’s population edges upward to 5.2 million people, we will see our average volunteer use become allotments as it drops from 54,675 to 38,766 gallons.

Los Angeles County’s population without sensible controls is expected to increase by 3.4 million people by 2050. By the same token Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Orange populations are expected to increase by 7.8 million. All without any firm guarantees that we can meet their requirements at today’s levels.

What began as conservation years ago will become rationing and neither Mayor Villaraigosa or any of the other city leaders who encouraged smart growth will be smiling in front of cameras anymore.

Posted on November 19th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: GENERAL, MANAGING GROWTH, WATER
1 Comment »

I’ve visited Cabora Road quite a number of times with my sons to let them ride their bicycles and hike a little bit on the Westchester bluffs.  So I have to say I was really surprised by the recent fencing of the bluffs along the eastern portion of Cabora Road. 

Apparently there was is an LMU professor who happens to live up on the bluffs who spent a great deal of time complaining to Playa Vista and the city council office about unleashed dogs allowed to run around on the slopes and damage to the native vegetation.

A few months ago, a Playa Vista official approached me with a problem they were having and asked me if I could help them by adding some trail rules and tips to my Cabora Road page on WestchesterKids.org.  The professor was quite unhappy with the public’s access to Cabora Road and she thought that WestchesterKids.org might have been encouraging people to visit and enjoy the area.

And of course we were!  Cabora Road if your not familiar with it is an easement for the LA City Public Works and it is public property.  However the bluffs themselves are privately owned with a mix of owners.  Some areas are owned by Playa Vista, others are owned by LMU. 

Neither PV or Loyola are going to build on this property so it’s my feeling that anytime you have city property and you can find dual use for it that benefits the public, we should jump on that opportunity**.  Cabora Road and the surrounding area are one of those properties.

I thought Playa Vista’s request was fair and I went ahead and added the suggested trail rules and tips to the pages. But that was not enough, the professor persisted in her complaints.

I’ve visited Cabora Road enough times over the years to be certain that this persons complaints are very exaggerated.  And damage to the bluffs?  Old timers told me they used to hike down trails from their Kentwood homes to go to work at the old Hughes Aircraft facility and kids have been playing around on these slopes for fifty years. The bluffs have stood the test of time.

Undeveloped areas, the kind we used to play in when we were children are extremely rare now.  Over the years those areas succumbed to the bulldozer and cement truck. The rest become off limits because there is a chance that you might step on some milkweed.

I used to let my kids explore around Hastings Canyon (car canyon to some kids. Named for a couple of vehicles rolled down into the ravine decades ago.) where they would pretend to be archaeologists and dig into the sandstone looking for bones but the canyon has since been filled in and new homes have been built on it. Bluff homes – a lot like the LMU professors - except newer.

So while all the last bits of raw open space finally disappear, our cities do little to nothing to set aside some of these areas for our kids.  It was not all that long ago when Catellus offered to sell the West Bluffs for $50 million but the city failed to jump on that opportunity. Hundreds of homes overseeing Lincoln Boulevard and the freshwater marsh sit on that property today.

I guess that Playa Vista finally had enough of the daily phone calls and emails coming from this person complaining about people and dogs on its property so they decided to throw in the towel.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease and this wheel got a thousand feet of ugly 6 feet tall chain link fence to keep the public out. What’s left is a dead end asphalt alley.

Even the bluff residents have no access down the trails from their homes to Cabora Road since that fence also blocks their access.

Score: Professor 1, Kids and the public 0

**In 2003, I had proposed that we developed Cabora Road into the Sepulveda to the Sea pedestrian and bicycle trail because there are no safe alternatives for kids (and adults) to bike to the beach from the east side of Westchester.  Bike lanes on Manchester are not safe. My hope was a long dirt or composite path with rest areas along the way.  The city failed to recognize or jump on the opportunity then though the opportunity still exists today.

Posted on November 19th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR ENVIRONMENT, RAISING CHILDREN
8 Comments »

Westchester, Playa del Rey and Playa Vista have options outside of Westchester High School.  Each year Westchester Lutheran hosts a high school information night where parents from Visitation, St. Anastasia School, St. Jeromes, Westchester Lutheran and other schools are invited to attend.

This year eleven schools made presentations to prospective Westchester and Playa del Rey 6th, 7th and 8th grade parents. Those schools were:

• Bishop Montgomery – Torrance (Co-ed)
• Immaculate Heart – West Los Angeles (Girls)
• Junipero Serra – Gardena (Co-ed)
• Loyola – Los Angeles near USC (Boys)
• Marymount – Los Angeles near Bel Air (Girls)
• Notre Dame -West Los Angeles (Girls)
• Pacifica Christian – Santa Monica (Co-ed)
• St. Bernard – Westchester (Co-ed)
• St. John Bosco – Bellflower (Boys)
• St. Monica – Santa Monica (Co-ed)
• West Los Angeles Baptist – West Los Angeles (Co-ed)

Posted on November 17th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS
1 Comment »

Previously I posted a short article encouraging you not to let your child create a MySpace account.

Here is another reason you should not cave in. There are simply too many back doors to trouble. There are simply too many “friends” to figure out whether they are legitimate or not and you cannot control your child’s access to their friends.

If your child is under 17, stay away from MySpace or any of the other so-called social networks. There is nothing good about it. It’s easier to say no than it is to take it away.

When grown-ups turn cyberbullies
Posted by Ina Fried
It’s an unimaginably sad story.

Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl who has struggled with issues of self-esteem and depression, is greeted on MySpace by an older boy. He strikes up a flirtation with her over a series of weeks. Then, inexplicably, he starts sending accusatory messages, then nasty ones.

Megan, crushed by the turn of events, takes her own life.

Further twisting the tragedy is the fact that the boy wasn’t a boy at all. Rather, he was the creation of adults, including the mother of one of Megan’s friends, a girl with whom she had a falling out.

You’ll find the rest of the article here at CNET: When grown-ups turn cyberbullies

Posted on November 17th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: RAISING CHILDREN
No Comments »