Community Service Winners Honored

‘I feel like I’m back in Iowa,’ a Palisades resident said last Thursday evening as she ate a potluck dinner at a long oak table in the historic dining hall in Temescal Canyon. The woman was a guest of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, invited to join the council’s annual holiday meal prior to it’s final meeting of the year, and she also enjoyed hearing the council deal with a typical grassroots agenda. First up, council chairman Norm Kulla and member Marguerite Perkins-Mautner presented the group’s annual Community Service Awards to senior activist Carol Hurley and youth sports advocate Bill Bruns (editor of the Palisadian-Post). Kulla praised Hurley’s years of volunteer work in Pacific Palisades, including her leadership in founding the Palisades AARP chapter and her ongoing efforts to bring affordable local transportation and a senior center to the community. Referring to the recently formed task force on transportation and parking issues, Kulla said: ‘If we’re going to finally get something done on these issues, it’s because Carol Hurley is on the committee.’ Accepting her award, Hurley praised other seniors in the Palisades who are working with her on transportation and the quest for a senior center at the park. ‘I try to work behind the scenes, but I really think we can get a lot of things done,’ she said. Perkins-Maunter cited Bruns’ ‘long years of activism devoted to local youth sports programs,’ including coaching AYSO soccer teams, serving as commissioner of the Pacific Palisades Baseball Association, and keeping alive the girls softball program at the Recreation Center while his two children, Alan and Allison, were growing up in the community. He has continued that support in his 11 years as Post editor by encouraging comprehensive local sports coverage and advocating for fundraising campaigns such as the new gym and the Field of Dreams. In his remarks, Bruns noted that he and his wife, Pam, moved to the Palisades in 1972, ‘at a time’coincidentally’when the Community Council was being organized, the Village Green campaign was just underway, and the Temescal Canyon Association was founded. These three organizations have all played a vital role in our town’s success.’ Commendations were presented by Monique Ford on behalf of Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski and Jenny Toder on behalf of Assemblywoman Fran Pavley.