Why I’m Walking Out
At 10 a.m. on March 14, I’ll be walking out of my history class to participate in a truly historic moment: I’ll be joining students across the nation to tell our leaders to choose kids over guns.
I will also be using my 17 minutes outside of the classroom to think about the 17 people whose lives were senselessly taken from them the month before. It was senseless not only on the part of the shooter, but also on the part of our lawmakers. Congress has failed us.
The U.S. has way more gun deaths than any other developed nation, and it has far more guns than any other country in the world, according to the United Nations. Americans make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population but own more than 30 percent of all the world’s privately held firearms.
Are we so attached to the Second Amendment that we are willing to sacrifice children’s lives? Is there no room for common sense gun laws? I think there is, and I think that it’s time for change.
It will be my honor to be a part of that change. I am inspired by the Parkland student survivors who are speaking out and leading this movement. They lost their classmates and friends. Just like countless school shootings before this one, parents have lost their children and children have lost their lives.
I am walking out on March 14 because enough is enough.
Éva Milan Engel | Paul Revere Charter Middle School Sixth Grader
View from The Highlands
The PPCC’s Land Use Committee and the PPCC itself voted Thursday, Feb. 22, to reconsider the PPCC’s previous description of the proposed eldercare project as an “appropriate use” for The Highlands site, after project opponents pointed out that the LUC and PPCC’s earlier decisions on the matter failed to consider applicable Coastal Act requirements. When the Coastal Act requirements are considered, the LUC and PPCC should find that the proposed eldercare use is not appropriate for the Highlands site.
State and local maps and the Brentwood-Pacific Palisades Community Plan make crystal clear that The Highlands is in the Coastal Zone and is governed by all Coastal Act requirements, which include not only the Coastal Act itself but also the protections of the California Coastline Preservation and Recreation Plan for the Santa Monica Mountains, the Coastal Regional Interpretive Guidelines and the Palisades Community Plan land use policies.
Here are just a few examples of restrictions from those protections that render the use and the project not appropriate: Palisades Community Plan Policy Guideline 2-3.1 states that “senior citizen housing projects [must be located] in neighborhoods within reasonable walking distance of health and community facilities, services and public transportation.” The Highlands area lacks any medical or community services, and is situated miles from any public transportation, so the project fails this guideline.
Palisades Regional Guideline B-1 requires that “commercial establishments should be public recreation and recreation supportive or otherwise coastally related facilities” (interpreting Public Resources Code Secs. 30222 and 30255). The eldercare project, which is a commercial facility, does not meet this guideline requirement.
PRC Sec. 30251 requires development to be visually compatible with the character of the surrounding areas. The proposed huge, four-story building, which would rise over 60 feet above Palisades Drive with only a 10-foot setback, would greatly exceed the visual impact of any other building in The Highlands by a wide margin.
The developer has continually asserted that because the LA Municipal Code includes eldercare within the current zoning classification of the site, eldercare use is allowed “by right.” To the contrary, city zoning does not supersede the protections afforded by the Coastal Act and related provisions. The fundamental purpose of the Coastal Act is to ensure that state policies prevail over contrary harmful local government policies.
If Coastal Act requirements are properly considered, the eldercare project cannot be allowed to proceed.
Harris S. Leven | The Highlands
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