Council Members Clash with Coalition

Sparks flew during a heated meeting of the Pacific Palisades Community Council (PPCC) Thursday as several council members were accused of ‘bias’ and ‘conflicts of interest’ with regards to a task force that has been assigned to find a location for a second L.A. Department of Water Power distribution station in the Palisades. At the meeting, the Coalition of Palisadians to Keep Marquez Charter Safe (Marquez Coalition) asked several members of the Council to recuse themselves on all matters related to DWP’s proposed distribution station (DS-104), including President Barbara Kohn, Treasurer Ted Mackie, Environmental Representative Gil Dembo, and Alternate Environmental Representatives Richard Cohen and Susan Orenstein, who are all also members of the Temescal Canyon Association. ‘The coalition believes that both Ms. Cohen and Ms. [Norma] Spak, and potentially other Temescal Canyon Association members, are biased against community efforts to defend against DWP’s proposed use of the Marquez site and against the community task force’s efforts to find an appropriate location for DS-104,’ said Kaye Steinsapir, a founding member of the Marquez Coalition, in the packed library meeting room filled mostly with Marquez Coalition supporters. In April 2011, the DWP distribution station (DS-104) was proposed for DWP-owned property adjacent to Marquez Charter Elementary School. DWP has stated that the distribution center is needed to supplement the aging power distribution station (DS-29) at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Via de la Paz, which has served the area since 1936. DWP presented its plans for the proposed site at a town hall meeting in February, which was organized in cooperation with the Community Council and the Marquez Knolls Property Owners Association (MKPOA). At this time, a group of neighbors and school parents who opposed the Marquez site for DS-104 formed the Marquez Coalition. Since DWP’s proposal was opposed by many Marquez Knolls neighbors and parents, Councilman Bill Rosendahl and LAUSD Board member Steve Zimmer met with Ronald O. Nichols, DWP general manager, in June and agreed to form an independently facilitated task force consisting of seven to 12 community members to find another site. At the heart of the Marquez Coalition’s grievance with the PPCC members mentioned above is a November 3, 2011 meeting between Rosendahl’s office, DWP officials and ‘people of influence.’ The meeting was organized by DWP to see if a substation at Los Liones and Sunset Boulevard, adjacent to Fire Station 69 and located on California State Parks land, would be opposed by parties who had vested interests in that parcel.   The one-acre Los Liones parcel was one of four alternatives studied by DWP. The others included the Getty’s Sunset Blvd. site that was subsequently sold in 2011 to Chabad of Pacific Palisades for a new Jewish community center; a site at Bollinger and Marquez Avenue that would have required the removal of several homes and businesses, and the Marquez parcel (overlooking Marquez Canyon).   The DWP site evaluation included studying several environmental factors, including aesthetics, air quality, biological resources, geology, soils and other topics. The evaluation identified the Los Liones site as having the highest environmental score (a B grade), while the Marquez lot received one of the lowest grades, including an ‘F’ in geology and soils. The grades in the evaluation were not linear’meaning that an F may be magnitudes worse than D grade. However, public documents indicate that evaluation may not have been presented to individuals at the November 3 meeting.   The sign-in sheet for that meeting, excluding representatives of DWP and Rosendahl’s office, included key Los Liones Canyon volunteers and Temescal Canyon Association members such as Spak, Shirley Haggstrom and Randy Young, and area residents Kohn and Bob Ramsdell. Also present was Suzanne Goode, a biologist for California State Parks who worked closely with volunteers to help restore Los Liones Park. The second piece of evidence that the Marquez Coalition cites as proof of ‘bias’ and ‘conflicts of interest’ is an interdepartmental e-mail between DWP officials sent the same day of the ‘closed room’ meeting. It reads: ‘I [Thomas Dailor, an environmental supervisor for DWP] met with Councilmember Rosendahl’s reps, Norman Kulla and Joaquin Macias, and several residents from the local community to discuss site selection for DS-104. The local residents were strongly opposed to the preferred site next to the fire station on Los Liones, and said they would support LADWP building on its Marquez Canyon site. Bob Cheah said we may have a public meeting with the larger community, in which case there will likely be residents in opposition of using the Marquez Canyon site. During our last meeting with just Norman Kulla and Joaquin Macias, Norman Kulla said he preferred that LADWP build on the Los Liones site. We’ll need to confirm his position after today’s meeting. BTW, Suzanne Goode from CDPR [California Department of Parks and Recreation] was present as well and she was opposed to building on the site next to the fire station on Los Liones, which is CDPR property.’ This e-mail was sent to Mark Sedlacek, director of environmental affairs for DWP, and Chuck Holloway of the DWP’s Environmental Affairs Department. ‘I was at the meeting and I sat at the table at Councilman Rosendahl’s office,’ Temescal Canyon Association member Haggstrom said during the Council meeting, as some Marquez Coalition members jeered in the audience. ‘We did what I hope this task force is going to do. We looked at the material presented to us by DWP. We discussed the four sites they had on their list. The State Parks representative [Goode] said that the State Parks land is not available. The State Parks representative was speaking for all the residents of California’ The property that was Sawyer’s nursery is not available, the commercial site at Marquez is not available, the site at Marquez that DWP owns is available”   According to public documents, DWP was considering mitigation/land exchange for the Los Liones Fire Station site. DWP owns a 97-acre property in Malibu between Solstice Canyon Park and Corral Canyon Park’two popular areas for outdoor enthusiasts.   In exchange for the one-acre Los Liones site and a 9.5 mile Ground Return System to be constructed through State Parks land near the Sylmar Convertor Station, DWP was considering allowing the Malibu Parks Public Access Enhancement Plan/Public Works Plan, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority to construct a system of trails connecting Solstice Canyon Park and Corral Canyon Park. According to a mitigation review, DWP’s Sedlacek found that the fulfillment of this proposal would have been of interest to State Parks. It is unclear at this time if this proposal or alternative was presented at the November 3 meeting, which Sedlacek attended.   However, an October 27, 2011 interdepartmental e-mail between DWP officials reads as follows: ‘I believe the goal of this November 3 meeting is to inform and hopefully persuade the representative influential community members to lend their support to the Department when Craig Luna [DWP’s manager of real estate] approaches the State of California to negotiate for the Parcel 9B [Los Liones/Fire Station site].’   During last Thursday’s Council meeting, former Council President Richard Cohen responded to the Marquez Coalition members: ‘You are at the Pacific Palisades Community Council; we have rules, we have history, and we have bylaws. Every single one of us is a community activist, every single of us came to the Council because we opposed some problem or opposed some development’that’s why you came. Everybody has a position that we have staked out but that doesn’t disqualify us from having a position’and Barbara is fully entitled to act as [president] and to act on this even if she has taken a position. She is entitled to that’our bylaws clearly state that. The [task force] that is being constituted hasn’t done its work yet. Why shackle them and rule out any space? First, we don’t even know if a facility is necessary’I don’t know if the Marquez [site] is the least bad space or not. I think the task force should figure that out.’   Kulla, Rosendahl’s senior advisor, previously told the Palisadian-Post that those present at the November 3 meeting ‘didn’t want the distribution center to be located at Los Liones,’ but he did not hear a consensus of support by all those present for the Marquez Canyon site.   Longtime Palisades activist Randy Young, who attended the meeting, said that DWP did not present the mitigation/land exchange option at the meeting. When asked who spoke in favor of the Marquez site, Young said Monday: ‘I was the only one who spoke vehemently in favor of the lot at the end of the playing field at Marquez. I know I’m being a loudmouth know-it-all but I just said what would be legally appropriate. It has been the site for a substation since 1971.’   Young added that Kohn, who was not Community Council president at the time of the November 3 meeting, did not express support for the Marquez lot. Janet Turner, a Marquez Knolls resident, was president of the Council at that time and Haldis Toppel (current MKPOA vice president) was vice president. Some members of the MKPOA have worked closely with the Marquez Coalition to safeguard the Marquez parcel. In early September this year, after receiving news that an 11-member task force had been selected and that the meetings might be closed to the public, Kohn told the Post, ‘The meetings must be open per Brown Act requirements. On what basis can DWP declare these meetings closed to the public?’ On September 13, writing on behalf of the Community Council’s executive board to Rosendahl and DWP spokesperson Victoria Cross, Kohn advocated that all task force meetings be open to the public and that the group be more representative of the community. As a result of the correspondence, Rosendahl issued the following statement in a letter to the Post: ‘I support the PPCC’s request for a more balanced representative group of community citizens’ I also support a transparent process for the task force with meetings open to the public and press.’ Subsequently, three more members, all from the Community Council, were added to the task force, bringing the total to 14. The original 11 members were selected by DWP from 16 candidates who submitted their own names to Rosendahl’s office. The three new members are Gil Dembo, Area 2 (Highlands) Representative Paul Glasgall and Public Safety Advisor Amy Kalp. Other task force members include Haldis Toppel; Peter Duke, a Highlands resident and strategic consultant specializing in media and technology; Christy Dennis, president of MKPOA; Joyce Kup, founding member of the Marquez Coalition; Danielle Samulon, Marquez Elementary parent; Christine Abraham, Marquez Elementary parent; Jim Rea, Marquez Knolls area representative for the PPCC; Marc Zussman, founding member of the Marquez Coalition; Jeff Beal, Westside Waldorf School trustee and parent; Hank Wright, Palisades resident; and Kelly Comras, PPCC Area 1 representative for Castellammare and Paseo Miramar. The first meeting of the Task Force took place last night at the Palisades Lutheran Church.