A city department’s good intentions went awry but turned into a Sparkplug Award for Pacific Palisades resident Sam Lagana. Two years ago, the City of Los Angeles meant well when it installed grates on curbside storm drains to keep trash from washing into Santa Monica Bay during storms. However, instead of keeping trash out of the ocean, many of the grates in the Palisades became clogged with leaves and other debris and failed to open. ‘If the grates don’t open there is nowhere for the water to go,’ said Lagana, who lives in Marquez Knolls with his wife Eileen and their daughters, Cambria, 17, and Cienna, 13. After the grates were installed in late 2009, subsequent rainstorms caused the streets in Lagana’s neighborhood to flood. The more it rained the deeper the water got, and significant rains last winter caused so much flooding that Lagana wondered if he should be using a different form of transportation other than his car.   ’I thought about getting my kayak out and riding it down to Sunset,’ he joked.   Striving to solve the problem, Lagana contacted the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation and the Marquez Knolls Property Owners Association (MKPOA) about flooding at his intersection: Jacon Way and Lachman Lane.   He sent photos of this intersection and other flooded intersections in his neighborhood to Norm Kulla at Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s office. He also kept documenting various clogged drains and updated Kulla, MKPOA and the city whenever flooding arose.   After a major storm early last spring, Lagana’s curiosity got the best of him and he decided to investigate further. With his two daughters along for the ride he drove the streets surrounding and above his home on Jacon Way to determine where the water was coming from. On Charmel Lane above his house, Lagana stopped at a storm drain and tossed a ping-pong ball into the drain. He did the same thing on Vista Grande Drive. ‘I wanted to confirm my hunch that the water flowing from the upper streets off Lachman flowed onto Jacon,’ he said. The ping-pong balls ended up back on his street. Meanwhile, Lagana helped provide a temporary solution to the grate problem. He began using a broomstick to force the drains open so the water could drain. Soon other neighbors were doing the same. After every flooding incident, Lagana contacted the city to demand something be done. His persistence finally paid off when the city sent workers to remove the troublesome grates last October 28, not only in Lagana’s neighborhood but in other areas around the Palisades. Removing the grates solved one problem, but created another because the curbside drains were now wide open and unsafe. After another round of phone calls and photographs from Lagana, the city complied and re-installed safety bars on the drains in November. ‘I saw a problem and I really just wanted to address it,’ Lagana told the Palisadian-Post. ‘I figured it was affecting a lot more people than just us and our neighbors.’ His campaign to remove the grates and install safety bars was an 18-month journey he could not have made without two of his neighbors, Frank Webb and the late Jim Squire, as well as all of the Palisadians who pitched in. ‘We have a great neighborhood,’ Lagana said. ‘We look out for one another.’ Looking out for his neighbors and his community is the reason Lagana was nominated for the Sparkplug Award, which he will receive at the Citizen of the Year dinner on April 26. ‘Over the years, Sam has given freely of his time and talent in many capacities,’ said Haldis Toppel, an officer of the MKPOA and the Community Council, who nominated Lagana for the award. ‘Sam’s boundless energy ignites the interests and participation in others to step up and help as needs arise,’ Toppel said. Getting involved and staying involved is something Lagana has no trouble doing. As a member of the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, he is at home behind the mike emceeing for numerous events (including the Chamber’s annual installation dinner) and as an announcer along the Fourth of July parade route. ‘My favorite event is the parade,’ Lagana said. ‘I get to spend the whole day with my family. It’s a tradition I love.’ Raised in the Palisades, Lagana attended Palisades Elementary Charter School, Paul Revere Charter Middle School and Palisades High School. He has been married for nearly 20 years to Eileen, an executive with Post360, a postproduction company. Their daughter Cambria is a junior at St. Monica’s Catholic High School in Santa Monica and Cienna is a seventh grader at Corpus Christi Catholic School in the Palisades. The couple has been together since 1985, when they met at Outlaws Bar & Grill in Playa Del Rey. At the time Eileen was an undergraduate at Loyola Marymount, from which Sam graduated in 1985. Currently the vice chancellor for athletics at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Lagana believes in getting involved in every aspect of his home and work life. Through his position at Pepperdine, Lagana heads the Waves Club, a unification program of people who are interested in supporting the university by donating to various athletic venues and sports. ‘I love being able to help people,’ he said. ‘I get to do that at Pepperdine.’ When Toppel told him of his nomination for the Sparkplug Award, Lagana was surprised. ‘It’s not one of those things that you intend,’ he said. ‘I was just so flattered when Haldis told me that she nominated me.’ When asked what the Sparkplug Award meant to him Lagana replied, ‘It’s an honor.’
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