Three local rock groups will headline the second annual July 4 concert at Palisades High School’s football stadium, as part of the town’s Independence Day festivities. The House Band, the Mayberrys and the Elevaters will perform on stage starting at 6:30 p.m., prior to the traditional fireworks show at about 9 p.m. The concert will also feature Palisades High alum Mimi Vitale, a talented singer who won the 2000 Miss Palisades contest; the PaliHi Concert Band; and other family-friendly entertainment. Admission is just $2 a person at the door (though larger donations are appreciated in order to help defray costs and support the school’s music department). Composed of family men with a penchant for Nirvana and Radiohead, the veteran group House Band and the nascent Mayberrys will play an array of original compositions and familiar covers. The predominantly 20-something Elevaters will close the concert. ‘Our goal is to continue the festive mood that starts with the Will Rogers race and transfers into the parade,’ said the House Band’s Keith Turner, who is co-organizing the concert entertainment. ‘We also want to feature Palisades talent: professional, amateur and student musicians and entertainers.’ Formed nearly a decade ago, the House Band includes three Pacific Palisades residents (Sheldon Cohn and John Nara, each on guitar, and Turner, on drums), plus two former ones: Malibu resident Doug Masterson (lead singer) and Andy Stewart (bass). ‘We’re a jam band,’ Turner said, ‘and we’ll be playing originals and covers, ranging from classic rock and the Dead, through grunge and alternative rock.’ Turner, who has his own law firm in town (specializing in handling real-estate disputes), is married to Michelle Rubin, who grew up in the Palisades. Her parents and her brother also live here. Demographically similar, the Mayberrys are fronted by Scott Humphrey of Santa Monica on lead guitar and lead vocals, but also feature Palisades residents Julian Brew (bass) and Gary Spivak (drums). Formed just last summer, the group has already played gigs all over Los Angeles. Brew, who was a member of the House Band at last year’s Independence Day concert at PaliHi, describes the Mayberrys’ sound as ‘driving power pop with strong melodies and harmonies and good edge,’ influenced by The White Stripes, The Kinks, Radiohead, Oasis Nirvana and others. ‘A foot in the past and a boot in the present,’ said Brew, summing up his band’s brand of rock. Are the Mayberrys named after the popular Swarthmore Avenue restaurant? ‘Purely coincidental,’ Brew said, explaining that they named themselves after the fictional town from ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ because of Pacific Palisades’ ‘small-town feel.’ ‘We started when Gary and I met at a restaurant and we both realized that we had similar musical tastes. I had known Scott for many years and thought he’d be a great fit. So we brought our individual songs into the studio and put our imprint on them.’ Humphrey may hail from Santa Monica, but wife Sharon Orrange is a Palisades native. As Brew put it, ‘She’s a PaliHi grad, so he’s in.’   The Elevaters consist of Benjamin Hall (lead singer/percussion), Andre Morton (drums), Itai Shapira (bass), Sam Golzari (lead vocalist/piano), David Noily (guitar), and Miles Gregley (vocalist). Among the bands, they might be the most unique”and urban”with their cosmopolitan blend of funk, soul and hip hop. They derive inspiration from such acts as Prince, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, the Roots and the Fugees. Managed by Palisadian Christina Soufo, the Elevaters released their first album, ‘Rising,’ in 2007. Their first single, ‘The One,’ made the rotation on Garth Trinidad’s KCRW program, ‘Chocolate City.’ In concert, the Elevaters have shared stages with hip-hop luminaries KRS-One and De La Soul, and the sextet has toured extensively nationwide. John Petrick, a member of the organizing committeee for the parade and the fireworks show, brought The Elevaters aboard via his connection with singer Hall. ‘John is one of my best friends,’ Hall said. ‘He said, ‘Hey, we’re doing this concert and it’d be a crime if you didn’t play it.” The band’s token Palisadian, Hall credits his former Paul Revere choir teacher, Jan Smith, for giving him the music bug: ‘She taught me how to sing in a group, which is something I still apply.’ Moving up to PaliHi’s theater arts department, Hall honed his performance skills in school productions. Senior year, he played Tony in ‘Westside Story,’ and then it was on to UCLA, where the nascent Elevaters took shape as a Westwood coffeehouse act. ‘We were an idealistic, kind of college-age collective trying to find our own identity,’ Hall said. After graduating in 2003, he moved to South America and lived in Colombia for two years. ‘All of us went our separate ways for a couple of years,’ Hall said, but after he returned to Los Angeles, ‘we realized that what we had as a group and a community with our friends at UCLA was a unique and powerful thing.’ Now living in Santa Monica, Hall teaches music at the Village Arts Center on Sunset. ‘So a lot of people know me around town, but they don’t know what I do beyond teaching kids.’ On July 4, Hall promises an ‘up-tempo, upbeat’ Elevaters show. ‘As our name implies,’ he said, ‘the intention of the music is to lift people’s spirits and get people dancing and open up their hearts and enjoy.’

A group of young adults played a game of touch football and little girls twirled pink hula hoops on the lawn at Will Rogers State Historic Park last weekend, while a mother hiked hand-in-hand with her young daughter on one of the park’s many trails. It’s hard to imagine that this park could be vacated if the Legislature follows Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to help alleviate the $24.3-billion budget crisis by closing 220 state parks. Other nearby parks on the list include Topanga, Leo Carrillo, Malibu Creek State Park and Malibu Lagoon. Pacific Palisades resident Stan Swartz, an avid trail runner, doesn’t want to experience this scenario either, so he organized an early morning rally on Sunday at Will Rogers to protest the park closures. He was answering the California State Parks Foundation’s call to demonstrate at a state park this past weekend. The foundation is making a slideshow with photos from the protests to show state legislators. ‘So many people use the parks,’ Swartz said, naming bikers, runners, equestrians and hikers. ‘It’s public property, and they are stealing something from us.’ About 60 Pacific Palisades residents and members of Swartz’s Trail Runners Club, which he founded in 1988, held protest signs that read ‘Save Our Parks’ and ‘I Support State Parks’ as they listened to speakers talk about the importance of keeping the parks open. That same day, park supporters rallied at Topanga State Park, collecting more than 250 signatures to support the proposed State Park Access Pass, according to Santa Monica Canyon resident Lucinda Mittleman, a leader in the ‘Campaign to Save Topanga State Park.’ The Access Pass would be a $15 surcharge on vehicle license fees for all noncommercial vehicles in California, in exchange for free access to state parks. Currently, parks charge day-use fees of $8 to $10. The access pass would provide about $143 million annually to the park system, according to the State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting state parks. Supporters such as Paul Rathje, a leader in the ‘Campaign to Save Topanga State Park,’ say ‘this is the only proposal that has any legs to keep parks open.’ It does seem like a good solution considering the severe budget shortfall.   The state’s Budget Conference Committee decided last week to follow Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut $70 million in general-fund support for state parks (the equivalent of 220 state parks), but adopted the State Parks Access Pass as an alternative strategy. The committee’s action will be compiled into a budget bill that will soon be voted on by the Legislature. The budget requires a two-thirds vote in both houses and must be signed by the governor. Let’s hope that legislators are wise enough to unite against Schwarzenegger and keep the parks open. His proposal is simply shortsighted and would not save nearly as much money as he suggests. For one thing, the closed parks would require additional policing because they would attract homeless people, teen partiers and vandals. Rathje, who attended the rallies at Topanga and Will Rogers on Sunday, also noted that the incidents of marijuana farms on public land would increase without law-abiding citizens visiting parks. He says marijuana farms on public land are already a problem, referencing September 2005, when federal authorities found a $28-million marijuana farm in Malibu Creek State Park. Additionally, the cost to reopen the parks at a later date would be significant because existing structures would need to be repaired and restored. Most importantly, state parks provide low-cost recreation and a quality-of-life experience. In Los Angeles, the parks are a place to experience nature and escape cement, billboards and skyscrapers. Many of these parks provide valuable environmental programming to children and adults alike. The parks also boost the state’s economy, providing amenties for tourists and drawing visitors from all over the world who spend money at private-sector businesses in nearby communities. Swartz hopes his rally, which also gained media attention from local television stations, ‘will have some small but important impact on the decision to keep parks open.’ Rathje urges people who care about state parks to send letters to their state representatives. To join the campaign in other ways, visit the State Parks Foundation at www.calparks.org.

Peering out from under his graduation cap, Palisades Charter High School valedictorian Taylor Savage stood before his classmates and challenged them to embrace the future. ‘The changes we face are not walls, but stairs, for change brings new prospects, new challenges, new faces and ideas, new words which will write the next chapter in our lives,’ Savage said during last Thursday’s graduation ceremony at the Stadium-by-the Sea. Savage, a Pacific Palisades resident who earned a 4.4 GPA, will soon embark on his own new adventure: He plans to attend Stanford this fall to major in computer science or engineering. He was also among the 71 graduates who were named California Scholarship Federation Affirmed Sealbearers. To receive this honor, students had to earn a certain number of points based on their grades. Savage’s classmate, fellow Palisadian Ava Sun, was the salutatorian, and she has plans to attend Yale. An active volunteer throughout high school, Sun was president of Pali’s American Red Cross club, ran on the track team, played the piano and tutored, in addition to achieving a 4.4 GPA. Thursday’s celebration began with the 575 graduates entering PaliHi’s stadium to the traditional ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ by Edward Elgar, while friends and family clapped, cheered and sounded blow horns. Senior Mariela Mejia belted out the national anthem, then student body president Nicholas Morshed led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance and gave a welcoming speech. Students greeted friends and family in languages such as Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Hebrew and Russian. Graduate Brittney Merritt noted that the future is in good hands with her classmates, saying that they are ‘geniuses who will remedy the economy and retool the automotive industry; environmentalists who will save the polar bears ‘ and future entertainment executives who will make sure that Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan never reach the airwaves again.’ Seniors Michael Jones and Sarah Tehrani spoke about memories and life lessons. Tehrani told her peers to congratulate themselves for their accomplishments. ‘Look back at all the things you have done for yourself,’ she said, noting that it may have been passing a math class, pulling through a hardship or earning the grades to achieve college acceptance. ‘Right now, I look at all the seniors, and I see a graduating class that represents success.’ Several seniors mentioned dealing with the tragic loss of a classmate in their speeches, referring to senior Nick Rosser, who died in an automobile accident on January 31 on Palisades Drive. His parents, Stacey and Richard Rosser, attended the ceremony in his memory. Graduates Daniel Allen and Elizabeth Rich sang Jack Johnson’s ‘Better Together’ and India Hughes performed ‘100 Years’ by John Ondrasik. Shane Liliedahl (singer) and Michael Lis (guitarist) performed ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ by R. Kelly, and PaliHi’s concert choir sang ‘Crossroads,’ composed by PaliHi music teacher Josh Elson. Principal Martin Griffin, who is leaving the school after one year on the job, told the graduates, ‘Your time at Pali has prepared you to go out into the world. Excel and shine brightly.’ He and PaliHi Executive Director Amy Dresser-Held then handed out the diplomas. After the final diploma was presented, senior class president Melody Javidzad stepped to the podium and asked the seniors to move their tassels from left to right to signify that they had graduated. ‘Congratulations class of 2009. We did it!’ she said as the young adults tossed their caps into the sky toward the setting sun.

An early morning raid at Palisades Recreation Center and Rustic Canyon Park resulted in 13 residents being cited for breaking the law that requires dogs to be on a leash in city parks (L.A. Municipal Code 63.44-B,2,C). Nine other people were cited in seven other parks (Venice Beach, Del Rey Lagoon, Oakwood, Mar Vista, Penmar, Cheviot Hills and Glen Alla) by animal-regulation and general-service officers last Thursday between 7 and 8 a.m. ‘We had numerous complaints about people breaking the off-leash law, and the ancillary issues such as safety and failure to pick up dog refuse,’ Lieutenant Rick Buetell said. ‘Our goal is to eliminate illegal activity for the safety of the public.’ Residents who have turned the Field of Dreams playing fields at the Rec Center into an ad-hoc dog park were shocked when more than 12 officers surrounded the field at 7 a.m. Soon after receiving the citation, a local businesswoman wrote the Palisadian-Post, ‘All present were issued citations for having their dogs off leash, including me, who had actually leashed my dog before I saw the band of officers. They still claimed my dog was off-leash, probably as ‘guilt by association.’ The officers were polite, but overpowering. There were so many of them! The experience was awful and quite humiliating.’ She continued, ‘As I left down the recently completed stairway to the Frontera parking lot, two more LAPD officers were coming up the stairs. There were two SUV-type vehicles parked in the lot, belonging to LAPD and Animal Regulation. It boggles my mind to consider all of the effort, coordination and resources that were used to create this show of power.   ’Officers had no information as to the amount of the fine for the citation. They kept saying ‘You will receive a notice to appear in court.’ They also kept asking for identification, which I do not carry with me when I am walking my dog early in the morning.’   A short time later, in Rustic Canyon Park, five dog owners were equally surprised when the task force arrived. ‘I was stunned; it was like a SWAT team,’ Gary Allen said. ‘People have been going here for 15 years. It’s our park and we take care of it.’   Allen said the citation looks like a traffic ticket and requires him to go to court, but does not disclose the amount of the fine. He cannot pay by mail.   A spokesperson at the Department of Animal Regulation told the Post that a first-time offense is $25, plus court costs, which can be as high as $135. Depending on the season, the Field of Dreams is heavily used by baseball, softball, soccer and flag football players and camps throughout the day, as well as by Village School and Corpus Christi students at PE during the school year. According to Palisades Senior Lead Officer Michael Moore, additional raids at Westside parks may be held. The lack of a lawful dog park in Pacific Palisades makes it difficult for residents who want to have their canines exercise and socialize with other dogs, without having to drive to Brentwood for the nearest off-leash park. ‘If there was a neighborhood off-leash park, we would all go there,’ Allen said.