‘A Letter of Appreciation’
The following letter was composed by the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness Board of Directors as a thank you to President Doug McCormick, who recently stepped down from his role, and has been reprinted with permission.
Doug McCormick served as PPTFH president from January 2016 through May 2020. Our Board of Directors had planned to celebrate Doug at a community meeting.
Due to world and local events, this was not to be. Each PPTFH Board Member helped shape the following letter by contributing one word and a sentence or two that describes a quality of Doug’s leadership.
Dear Doug,
Here are our words and thoughts of appreciation for you:
Generous: Although you have many wonderful qualities, none of those would matter if you were not so generous with your very large heart, time and abilities.
Supportive: You were supportive as we learned to take on new responsibilities and sometimes unknown challenges.
Role model: You are an example of how one individual can make a difference when they believe in and work toward a greater cause.
Steady: Your leadership was accepting, open and without agitation. When problems and setbacks occurred, you met them with equanimity. We could consistently count on you to lead.
Patiently persistent: You were able to walk the fine line and navigate a sense of urgency for accomplishing the immediate task without being heavy-handed. Your patient persistence was key to building our start-up organization.
Resolute: You calmly pushed toward the goal with a wise, compassionate purpose that inspired everyone.
Astute: In guiding us, you adroitly balanced passion for PPTFH’s mission with concern for what is practical and feasible. You allowed for the free flow of ideas while keeping everyone on task.
Meticulous: You paid attention to detail in organizing and leading Board and community meetings, assigning and following through on tasks while maintaining a sense of humor, perspective and patience.
Teacher: You have an ability to explain complex issues and a broad range of skills that you taught us as well as academic discipline and protocol.
Faith: You empowered us by having faith that we would carry out our responsibilities. Your leadership fostered our faith that you would support us without reservation. You lived your personal faith through acts of humble service and respectful compassion.
Excellent: Every time a decision was made, you closed with “excellent!” Doug, you built an excellent organization.
We are thankful to you, Doug, for your commitment and hard work! We honor and will miss you. We wish you well.
PPTFH Board of Directors
Update to ‘Legislation’
An update for the community, following up on Joe Halper’s informative letter in the July 16 edition of the Post: As I reported in connection with the June 30 PPCC meeting, at the end of the recent legislative session, Senator Allen abstained from voting on another housing density bill from Sen. Scott Wiener, SB 902, but voted Aye on the other bills, including the two that Joe references (none of which had been amended to include an unconditional fire zone exemption, as requested by PPCC—see http://pacpalicc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Update-on-Housing-BillsR.pdf).
The housing density bills that PPCC opposes have already passed in the Senate without an unconditional exemption and will be taken up in the Assembly Local Government Committee after the legislature returns from summer recess on July 27. Our Assemblymember Bloom is a member of that committee. He has indicated that he understands the issue; he did include an unconditional fire zone exemption in one of his own recent housing density bills, AB 1279.
At last week’s leadership meeting of the Westside Regional Alliance of Councils, as PPCC’s representative, I spoke with Assemblymember Bloom and requested that he review the housing bills that will be taken up in the Assembly Committee with an eye toward the need to protect fire zone areas via possible amendments by the bills’ authors to include an unconditional exemption. He indicated he would do so.
As Joe’s letter suggests—and as PPCC has been reporting for many months—lawmakers and policy influencers are determined to continue to push for statewide housing density legislation that diminishes local control over land use decisions and effectively eliminates single-family zoning in California.
Examples include the bills enacted in recent years allowing more accessory dwelling units “by right” in residential zones. These top-down legislative efforts and policies are often advanced as ostensibly necessary to provide for much-needed affordable housing, yet very little (if any) affordable housing is mandated in many of the recent housing bills.
PPCC will continue to monitor these and other bills that may have an impact on local zoning and public safety.
Christina Spitz
Secretary and Past Chair, PPCC
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