By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

Councilmember Mike Bonin submitted a motion to city officials on Wednesday, March 31, to evaluate and identify funding for supportive housing sites across West Los Angeles, including Pacific Palisades.

“Faced with resistance from city bureaucrats, this week I submitted a broad motion instructing the city to identify funding for a range of potential sites and programs throughout the district,” Bonin said in a statement. “The proposed sites include locations in Pacific Palisades, Mar Vista, Marina Del Rey, Playa del Rey, Venice, Del Rey, Westchester and West LA.”

Bonin requested the use of the county-owned parking lot at Will Rogers State Beach, located at 17000 CA-1, as a temporary site for single-occupancy tiny homes or safe camping. Other temporary sites proposed include single-occupancy tiny homes, safe camping or safe parking at Parking Lot #3 at Dockweiler Beach; RV safe parking at the county-owned RV park at Dockweiler Beach; and single-occupancy tiny homes or safe camping at the Fisherman’s Village parking lot in Marina del Rey.

“Each of these locations will require feasibility analysis from city agencies, and will be subject to public hearings if they move forward,” according to a newsletter sent from Bonin’s office Saturday, April 3.

Supportive housing has been previously approved in Venice, Del Rey, Westchester and Brentwood.

The Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness said the organization would like to be involved in early discussions.

“That is our focused mission and we believe that early community involvement in constructive dialogue and a collaborative process is essential for working through potentially difficult issues,” Co-President Sharon Browning said to the Palisadian-Post. 

Browning said PPTFH hopes to have more information to discuss by the time of its next board meeting on Monday, May 24, and for an appointed field representative to be available to provide preliminary information about the steps involved in the evaluation process and timeline.

The Pacific Palisades Community Council announced plans to discuss the matter during its Thursday, April 8, meeting with Council District 11 Field Deputy Len Nguyen.

Since the motion was made, community members have expressed their opposition. Palisadian Jon Brown created a petition to “say no” to Bonin’s motion. More than 5,700 opponents of the motion signed Brown’s petition on change.org as the Post went to print Tuesday evening.

“We can’t figure out the logic or thought process that [led] Mr. Bonin and his co-sponsors to set up these tiny villages throughout the city, but our [5,000-plus] signatures gathered in just three days seem to suggest that many of us are completely baffled at why he has proposed this motion,” Brown said to the Post. “Hopefully, we can deter the city from moving forward with this and force them to find a better solution to supporting our homeless community and respecting every Los Angeleno.”

A representative from Bonin’s office told the Post the next step is a hearing in the Homelessness and Poverty Committee, the timing of which is determined by that committee’s chair.

“None of the locations we’ve identified are ideal, and I’m always open to other suggestions,” Bonin shared on Twitter on Monday, April 5. “But we’ve looked long and hard. There are no ideal places on the Westside, but that doesn’t reduce the need or urgency to act.”

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

The Pacific Palisades Community Council welcomed Isabelle Duvivier of the Los Angeles Community Forest Advisory Committee at its March 25 virtual meeting to deliver updates about the committee’s work to guide and support policy to protect the urban canopy, as well as preserve protected trees.

CFAC operates with a mission to “achieve a healthy, safe and enduring Los Angeles community forest ecosystem for the enjoyment and well being of all,” according to its website.

Duvivier is an architect and volunteer committee member who represents Council District 11 on CFAC, nominated by City Council members and appointed by the mayor, and has been involved in the program for more than four years.

The committee, which was formed under the Department of Public Works, helps liaison between community members and the city to help shape policy around the urban canopy, which Duvivier shared is “highly stressed and in steep decline” due to things like “development, drought, invasive species and sidewalk repair programs.”

Duvivier explained that CFAC was “instrumental in getting the city to agree to do an inventory” of trees, which is the first it has done in a “long, long time.”

“It’s a really well done inventory and a program where you can go online and you can see the tree species, the size of the species, the condition of the species by each council district,” Duvivier explained.

Within CD 11, Venice is slated to have its inventory completed in July, and as of the time of the PPCC meeting, the Pacific Palisades inventory timeline remained unknown. Duvivier estimated that roughly one-tenth of the tree species in the city have so far been mapped.

CFAC also pushed to get a city forest officer, who helps coordinate different departments that deal with trees, and instigated the Dudek report, which marked the beginning of an urban forest management plan.

Duvivier shared that one of the reasons she attended the PPCC meeting was to request assistance in getting Councilmember Mike Bonin’s to appoint an alternate for her.

“I live in the flatlands of Venice and there’s a lot going on down here,” she explained. “There’s a lot of areas that are tree canopy deprived. You don’t suffer that. What we see in the hillside … region is large numbers of protected tree removals.”

Duvivier explained that the number of protected tree removals happening across the city is expanding and a lot of times, all it requires is someone to review a project and make “some very simple recommendations.” She explained this is not to stop projects from happening, but to help the city help itself to create policy that can protect some of these trees.

CFAC also recently wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Fire Department, encouraging the agency to add information about protected trees in its brush clearance literature.

The committee is also requesting the city of LA increase its tree budget from .25% to 1%—which Duvivier explained is what a typical budget looks like.

“In California, every $1 invested in a street tree returns almost $6 in benefit,” Duvivier added, referencing a study done in April 2016.

Before concluding her presentation, Duvivier encouraged Palisadians to register their gardens with the National Wildlife Federation to help the city of LA to become the “largest city in the country that has wildlife gardens within its boundaries.” In order to register, the garden must have food, water, cover, places to raise young and sustainable practices.

For more information for how to get involved with CFAC, call 213-978-0260. To register with the National Wildlife Federation, visit nwf.org.

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Sixteen-year-old Palisades Charter High School student Catherine Hart recently founded the “Senior Essentials” program, which has provided free assistance to local seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She has recently created a website to increase awareness and drum up support. As a result, teens, moms and classmates are getting on board.

“I’m very encouraged by the enthusiasm that people have shown for this so far,” Hart said. “We’re a group of Palisades teenagers who volunteer our time to help the senior citizens in our community. It’s been great, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.”

Not only does the program meet her community service project, it also provides much-needed assistance during COVID—an idea Hart came up with while visiting her grandmother in New York.

“She was telling me what a pain it is waiting in line at CVS to pick up her own medicine and it got me thinking, it would be great if she had someone to do it for her, as well as other little things seniors may need,” she said. “I posted something on Nextdoor, although I wasn’t sure exactly what would be needed, and it got a pretty big response from people wanting to coordinate or volunteer.

“Now I have a few clients who I help regularly either with technology, delivering a package or running errands. I kept it pretty local, so most of them are here in the Palisades—Huntington, Highlands, Alphabet Streets—which helps with my scheduling.”

A sophomore honors student on the diving team at Pali High, Hart has been athletic all her life. She not only competes for her school team, she also trains with the Los Angeles Dive Club (based at UCLA) and is a competitive cheerleader with Santa Monica Athletix Xtreme. Before that, she was a gymnast for 10 years.

Hart and her family moved to Pacific Palisades from Long Island, New York, when she was 9. They first lived in the Alphabet Streets but relocated to the El Medio Bluffs five years ago.

She attended Palisades Charter Elementary School for fourth and fifth grade, then went to Paul Revere Charter Middle School for grades six through eight. Her parents are Christian and Colleen and she has two younger sisters. They are parishioners at Corpus Christi Church, where Catherine will be confirmed later this month.

“I have four or five people so far and I do weekly things like taking the garbage cans in and out, picking up medicine and essentials from the pharmacy, helping schedule doctor’s appointments and COVID vaccine appointments, picking up the paper, or helping with Zoom,” Hart added. “I’d wanted to volunteer at Atria Park (an assisted living facility in the Village), but I find most clients live in houses in neighborhoods close by us.”

As for the future of Senior Essentials, Hart shared she hopes her siblings will head the program once she graduates.

“I want to be a doctor some day and help seniors, so my plan is to run this program until I go off to college,” she said. “After that my sister Cassidy will take it over and then maybe Christie after her.”

Senior Essential’s 501(c)(3) status is pending.

For more information about the program, to volunteer or to request services, visit the website at palisenioressentials.org or email palisenioressentials@gmail.com.