Starting this Saturday, the Marquez Elementary School playground will once again be open to the public on weekends and school holidays. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has granted a 15-week temporary contract to Palisades Patrol, which will open and close the gates at dawn and dusk, pick up trash and enforce a ‘no dog’ policy. ’The Marquez community owes a big thanks to Palisades Patrol for stepping up and allowing the playground to reopen,’ said Marquez Principal Phillip Hollis. The playground, with climbing structures, handball and basketball courts, and a grass field, was closed in September. The City of Los Angeles and LAUSD had a joint-use agreement in 2002 to keep the playground open to the public during non-school hours. The agreement was not renewed after that year, but the playground was inadvertently kept open. When the lapsed agreement was discovered last September, neither the city nor the district was willing to assume the liability, citing budget constraints. Marquez Elementary parent George Kalmar collected 200 signatures on a petition that he sent to LAUSD and city officials asking that the playground be reopened. He then began the process of forming a nonprofit organization, Friends of the Playground, to purchase insurance and assume liability, but decided it was too much of an undertaking. Scott Wagenseller, chief executive officer of Palisades Patrol (a private security company), told the Palisadian-Post that he wanted to help out the community because ‘I know that the Palisades is very short on playground space.’ Since Palisades Patrol already works with LAUSD, Wagenseller figured he could take over the liability under his company’s insurance, which has a $10-million limit. Palisades Patrol provides its services to Palisades Elementary, Paul Revere and Marquez Elementary. All of the officers are qualified under state law to work as school security guards. On May 5, Wagenseller met with Hollis and LAUSD representative Eileen Ma to reach the agreement. Wagenseller explained that they signed a temporary lease to expedite the opening of the playground and to make sure that the arrangement is feasible for both parties. To keep the playground open, Hollis encouraged residents to follow the Boy Scouts example: ‘Pack in, pack out trash.’ In addition, residents must follow the rules by not bringing their dogs onto the playground. Palisades Patrol officers will cite dog owners and send the citations to the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, which has the ability to levy fines. ’I am a dog owner and dog lover myself,’ Hollis said, ‘but my first order of business is to provide a safe, clean environment in which to educate children, not to accommodate a dog park. We have small kindergarten and first-grade children playing on this yard five days a week. The last thing we need is for unruly dog owners to foul the yard for everyone and force it to be closed.’ Hollis and Wagenseller, however, are both optimistic that there will not be any problems and that a permanent lease will be signed. Wagenseller is already talking to the school about the possibility of placing security cameras on the campus, so his dispatch center can monitor the property. To celebrate the recent collaboration, Palisades Patrol hosted a party at the playground last Sunday to announce the town’s new honorary sheriff. Roger McGrath, a longtime Pacific Palisades resident and historian, will be the fifth honorary sheriff, succeeding Mike Lanning, Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 223. ‘It’s a ceremonial position,’ Wagenseller said. ‘We let the sheriffs create their own agenda. Depending on their schedule, they can just be ceremonial or they can be proactive in safety and security issues in the town.’ A Palisades High School graduate, McGrath has taught history at UCLA, Cal State Northridge and Pepperdine. The Marine veteran is the author of ‘Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes’ and has appeared in many documentaries on the History Channel, including ‘Cowboys and Outlaws’ and ‘The Real West.’
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