Seaweed to wrap sushi, to thicken ice cream, to wash your face . . . but the real magic is seaweed in your garden.
So says horticulturalist Dexter Friede, an expert on organic fertilizers at Grow More since 1992. He will discuss the benefits of seaweed and other organic stimulants and fertilizers when the Palisades Garden Club meets at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, November 3, at the Woman’s Club, 901 Haverford.
Although Grow More is a leading manufacturer of agricultural, horticultural and specialty chemicals, Friede says that, since the early ‘90s, organic products have become popular.
“Those sales have increased considerably in the home market, especially because the amino acids found in organics have a nitrogen value similar to chemicals, resulting in vigorous growth.
“Where you really notice the benefit from organic fertilizers is in flavor, as the plant takes advantage of the nutrients in the soil.” Friede notes that “a lot of gardeners use granular fertilizers to replenish exhausted soil by planting in the same spot season after season.”
Easy to apply, he says. But this treatment is counterproductive and often leads to a build-up of salt that contributes to rock-hard clay soils.
The secret of organics is that they build up beneficial bacteria that are grown in the roots of the plants, according to Friede. “If you can get that activation, you’ll have better growth.”
That’s where seaweed comes in. Seaweed extract has natural amino acids and trace nutrients, including the full vitamin B complex.
“Seaweed helps prevent plants from going into stress,” Fried says helps propagate new plants, and if used as a spray, stimulates leaf growth.” A miracle indeed.
Friede will bring samples to the meeting, undoubtedly with a little seaweed extract in the mix.
Talk: Miracle of Seaweed
Book ‘Em, Nan-O!
Nancy Covey Once Again Organizes Talent For McCabe’s as Guitar Shop Turns 50
Photo: Ellen Griffith.
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Left to right: Elvis Costello, Nancy Covey and Richard Thompson at Covey’s farewell concert at McCabe’s, June 30, 1984.
Photo: Ellen Griffith.
“Nancy Covey had a profound influence on my musical youth, although I was not able to put a face and name to my teenage experiences until a couple of weeks ago.” columnist Phil Gallo recalled in a September 29 Variety editorial. “Covey ran the venue at a time when my musical tastes were being shaped, in this case largely by folk-based musicians whose music had no correlation to anything being played on the radio or in any other venue in Los Angeles. McCabe’s was a slice of heaven.”
McCabe’s Guitar Shop turns 50 this year, and Covey, who booked the venerable Santa Monica vender’s back-room concerts from 1974 to 1984, had brought live acts to the intimate music haven across three decades.
Covey, a Palisadian, also helped organize a royal fete for the half-century-old store at UCLA’s Royce Hall. No less than Covey’s husband, Richard Thompson, Pretenders singer Chrissy Hynde, Los Lobos, Jackson Browne, Peter Case, David Lindley, Jennifer Warnes and others who started there or played McCabe’s early in their careers paid homage to the legendary little music shop that could at the October 2 concert.
“My mother bought her first guitar there,” Covey tells the Palisadian-Post. “That’s how I first knew about it. I went away to college and to Europe with a backpack and I came back in the early ‘70s.”
Covey intended to return to Oregon, where she attended college, and continue a hippie existence. So she went to McCabe’s looking for odd jobs.
“I needed gas money to get to Oregon to teach there,” she says. “ I needed $30 to get back. Thirty dollars! You could drive from L.A. to Oregon for $30 back then.”
Robby Kimmel, a musician in the Stone Ponies who day-jobbed it at McCabe’s, on 3101 Pico Boulevard, hired Covey.
“He ran the concerts at McCabe’s and I started out by cleaning the house he shared with his girlfriend. He was doing a concert in Santa Barbara and he needed help answering phones. After a week, he said, ‘Wow, you’re the person I’m looking for.’”
Kimmel convinced Covey to delay her Oregon plans and work at McCabe’s for $75 a week.
“The shoe fit,” Covey says. “After six months, I was hooked.”
Upon Kimmel’s departure a year later, Covey took over booking gigs. Covey’s big discoveries included Vince Gill and John Hyatt (who opened for John Lee Hooker) “my main discovery. I was just blown away by him. He’s quirky and great. It was his first L.A. gig.”
Covey flew to England to convince future husband Thompson to play.
“He hadn’t played in America,” she says. “He came over, we fell in love and there you go.”
Thompson went on to record the famous heart-wrenching divorce album “Shoot Out The Lights” with ex-wife Linda Thompson. Thompson and Covey, married for 24 years, have a son, Jack, 17, who attends Crossroads and plays bass in a band called Mangrass.
McCabe’s has enjoyed many memorable moments. Joni Mitchell sat in with Eric Andersen, and Covey indulged her love of roots, Cajun and blues music by booking those genres’ top practitioners. Covey recalls that “Los Lobos called me…They wanted to play for free and they actually played at our wedding in Malibu.” But the best McCabe’s concert ever booked may have been Covey’s June 1984 going-away party.
“All these people showed up: Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon. And then Elvis Costello came,” Covey says. “This is a 150-seat theatre. When Elvis walked onstage, the audience was enthralled.”
The Royce Hall show earlier this month was no less magical.
“I hadn’t produced shows in a long time,” Covey says. “So the first people I called were the people I felt had a real connection to McCabe’s: Jackson Browne, Los Lobos, the magician Ricky Jay.”
The house band included Thompson and Van Dyke Parks, while Covey was able to detour Loudon Wainwright and Blind Boys of Alabama from their respective tours to perform on the UCLA stage, filled with musicians for the closer: Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”
“[Former L.A. Times music critic] Steve Hochman said it was the best concert he had ever seen,” Covey says.
The music industry has seen many of its institutions crumble recently, from the Tower Records on the Sunset Strip, to New York’s CBGB and the Bottom Line; places where music history was made. Covey admits she is surprised to find McCabe’s still strummin’…but she understands why.
“It’s because of Bob Riskin,” Covey says, noting the shop’s founding father, whose mother was actress Fay Wray. “He’s been in the back of this little office for the better part of 50 years. McCabe’s is not a chain, it’s not corporate. It’s one man’s vision.”
Covey knows why so many top-flight musicians have gravitated to McCabe’s over the decades.
“I budgeted it so I could pay the musicians really well,” Covey says. “Besides, they were playing in a guitar shop. All musicians love to be in a guitar shop.”
Ballona Wetlands
A Reprieve from the City
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A great egret (formerly known as American egret) stands solitary against the autumn-colored pickleweed landscape in Ballona Wetlands.
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
The sun rises over Ballona Wetlands in Playa del Rey, lighting the crimson pickleweed on a crisp October morning. Like the trees in a forest, the pickleweed has changed colors, marking the beginning of fall.
Great blue herons fly overhead, hungry for salt-marsh harvest mice that live in the pickleweed, while a black-bellied plover, newly arrived from Alaska, glides past.
Through the efforts of local activists and government officials, this tranquil nature reserve in the middle of Los Angeles was made possible. Five years ago, the state acquired more than 600 acres of Ballona Wetlands, located along Ballona Creek, through a partnership with the Trust for Public Land.
The California Department of Fish and Game and the State Lands Commission have jurisdiction over the wetlands, which are transected by Jefferson, Culver and Lincoln Boulevards and extend to the Marina Freeway.
“It’s something that many in L.A. don’t realize is here,” says Marcia Hanscom, co-director of the Ballona Institute, a nonprofit organization that provides research and exploration of Ballona Wetlands.
Unfortunately, that’s because the wetlands are still not easily accessible to the public, Hanscom says. There are no trails or interpretive signs, and the Ballona Creek levee (on the opposite side of the creek from the bike path) has “no trespassing” signs.
Despite that fact, Ballona Institute is striving to educate more people about the wetlands, which have saltwater and freshwater marshes, and are home to two endangered plants (the Lewis primrose and southern tarplant) and two endangered species (the California brown pelican and California least tern).
Earlier this year, the institute opened the Shallow Water Nature Store (221 Culver Blvd., Playa del Rey) to carry merchandise related to the wetlands, and the Ballona Institute Research Center and Archive (425 Culver), which has books and maps about the wetlands.
Ballona Institute co-director and ecologist Robert Jan “Roy” van de Hoek leads two-hour nature walks on the first Sunday of every month, and an average of 20 people attend. In addition, van de Hoek offers full-moon nature walks, bicycle tours and van and mini-bus tours. The institute plans to purchase an electric boat, so he can take people on tours along Ballona Creek, which flows through Culver City and empties into Santa Monica Bay.
This winter and spring, van de Hoek will be training docents to help him. The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority awarded the institute a grant of $50,000 to train the docents and to create a pocket field guide with photos and information about the wildlife in Ballona.
Van de Hoek, who also works as a park supervisor for the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation, started leading tours around the perimeter of the wetlands 11 years ago when the property was privately owned. He sought to educate the community about the importance of Ballona’s ecology.
“I wanted to share my knowledge of nature through storytelling,” says van de Hoek, who graduated from Cal State Northridge with a degree in environmental biology and geography. He has worked as a scientist for the U.S. Forest Service and as a wildlife biologist and archeologist for the Department of Interior.
Van de Hoek is not paid for leading the walking tours and his passion for wildlife is evident on a recent fall day at Ballona, when he spies a whimbrel standing on a coastal rock.
“In Alaska, the whimbrel eats mosquitoes and other insects,” van de Hoek says. “Here, it feeds on a smorgasbord of marine animals: worms, snails and fiddler crab. It’s amazing how the whimbrel changes its diet.”
He then spots two striped mullet jumping out of Ballona Creek, and with equal enthusiasm, he explains how striped mullet grow to their full size in the creek and spawn in the ocean.
Van de Hoek also likes to inform visitors about the history of the wetlands, which once covered more than 2,000 acres. He points to trestles left from the Pacific Electric Railroad, which traveled through Ballona in the 1900s. He then relates how aviator Howard Hughes, who once owned part of the wetlands, built a hangar there in the 1940s to store his Spruce Goose, a flying boat he designed to aid in World War II efforts. The hangar is still in Playa Vista and is designated as an historical site.
Bringing out a map, van de Hoek shows how construction of Marina del Rey in the 1950s destroyed about half the wetlands. Today, homes and businesses cover other parts of the former wetlands. “We wanted to save everything left,” van de Hoek says.
He and Hanscom are actively involved in the future of the wetlands, as the state works on the Ballona Wetlands Restoration Project and considers five potential ways to rehabilitate the wetlands. The U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers is also looking at possibilities to restore Ballona Creek.
Hanscom says she and van de Hoek are not thrilled with any of the plans yet because they call for what they consider drastic changes.
“We would like to see a plan that is more respectful to the habitat. We believe it’s important to maintain the equilibrium that is already there,” Hanscom says. “The changes should be done in a slow, thoughtful way.”
This year, Hanscom and van de Hoek are also celebrating the fact that these 600 acres are now in the public’s hands. Ballona Institute will host a gala dinner on December 2 at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey to honor elected officials and journalists who helped preserve the wetlands, a family picnic in spring 2009 to honor community activists and an art event called Expressions of the Heart in fall 2009 to recognize the contributions of writers and artists.
“We’re celebrating that the land was acquired and to inform the public that there is more to be involved with,” Hanscom says. “We need to continue to have stewardship.”
BOCA Man Returns to Antioch, Green Tea Moves to Swarthmore
Green Tea, a teen and women’s clothing boutique that opened on Antioch Street in 2004, moved this week into BOCA, a women’s clothing store on Swarthmore.
“It’s a good fit,” said Denise Martinez, who with her husband Mike Mangimelli owns BOCA, Green Tea and BOCA Man. “We’re taking the best of both stores to create one store for the convenience of our customers.”
“We picked out our favorite lines and will continue to carry them,” said Danielle Solis, the former manager of Green Tea, who is now working at BOCA. Less popular lines have been dropped.
“Both stores had a lot of the same customers,” said Solis, agreeing with Martinez’s assessment. “We also had a lot of mothers and daughters shopping, who would shop together in one store and then the other.”
When Green Team opened next to Gift Garden Antiques, the clothing style was called “less dressy” than BOCA, and “edgier.” Martinez believes that by combining stores, women now have more choices and a wider selection.
The sofa, table and television in the center of BOCA have been replaced with merchandise, so that the overall effect of the 2,500-sq.-ft. store remains airy and roomy. New moveable fixtures will soon replace bolted ones and allow more flexibility in arranging the store.
“We had a banner made that says, ‘Green Tea has moved in with her big sister BOCA,’” Martinez said. “Danielle and Misty Simpson [another Green Tea employee] wonder why we didn’t do it before.”
Meanwhile this week, Martinez and Mangimelli are also moving BOCA Man into the Green Tea space until anticipated space opens up on Swarthmore after the holiday season. BOCA Man opened on Antioch (corner of Swarthmore) in 2000, then moved to a temporary location on Sunset (formerly Nest Egg) in June of this year.
The front of the building and the sidewalk have been power-washed. The storefront was repainted on Tuesday and the interior cement floor was stained and polished. Much of the merchandise had been moved in by Wednesday and BOCA Man will reopen this week.
“It’s about the same square footage that we had on Sunset, but the space is better because it’s built for a clothing store,” said Will Mangimelli (Mike’s nephew). “Once we move in, we’ll have a television that’s devoted to sports.”
Contacts: BOCA (310) 459-7259; BOCA Man (310) 454-03891.
Actress, Author Marcia Wallace To Speak at Chamber Breakfast
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Actress Marcia Wallace
Before the Christmas carols kick in, the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce will welcome a “Carol” of another stripe.
Marcia Wallace, who famously played wiggy receptionist Carol Kester Bondurant on “The Bob Newhart Show,” will be this year’s guest speaker at the Chamber’s annual General Membership Breakfast on November 14 at the Riviera Country Club.
Expect hilarity when the town’s Honorary Mayor Gavin MacLeod introduces the carrot-topped comedienne.
“Eight in the morning may not be my best hour,” Wallace told the Palisadian-Post, half-joking. But she’s looking forward to the event, which she will be attending thanks to MacLeod, her longtime friend and fellow actor.
“Gavin and his wife Patty are two of my favorite people in the world,” Wallace said Tuesday.
Wallace knows the honorary mayor from her “Bob Newhart Show” days, noting that “’Mary Tyler Moore’ [MacLeod’s show] was the first MTM-produced show and our show was the second.”
Stellar cast aside, “Bob Newhart” came with a solid behind-the-scenes imprimatur. The Emmy Award-winning situation comedy was created by David Davis and Lorenzo Music (who supplied the voice of the show’s never-shown Carlton the Doorman).
Davis also co-created “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Rhoda,” “Taxi,” “and then David retired very early,” she said. “He’s married to [‘Rhoda’ star] Julie Kavner, who of course voices Marge Simpson.”
While Wallace and Carol are inseparable in most TV watchers’ minds, anyone under 35 will be more familiar with Wallace’s recurring role on “The Simpsons,” voicing Bart’s teacher, Mrs. Krabappel, which earned her an Emmy in 1992.
Wallace, 66, enjoys working on what is currently television’s longest-running sitcom, entering its 20th season.
“The energy is that of a sitcom, not cartoon energy,” Wallace observed, differentiating “The Simpsons” from typical over-amped animated fare with “rabbits going off cliffs and not dying.”
“My favorite character is Lisa—the heart and soul of the show,” Wallace said. “My dream is to spar with Skinner’s mother.”
There was precedent on “The Bob Newhart Show” for Wallace’s late career.
“Lorenzo left sitcoms and did voiceover!” Wallace said. “He was Garfield!”
Wallace also played Maggie the Housekeeper on “South Park.” So just call her “the Queen of Voice-Over.”
“The older you get, the fewer the parts for women,” Wallace noted. “I’m lucky I’ve always earned a living acting.”
Despite the early hour, Wallace is looking forward to the Chamber breakfast. She can use a little laughter, as she recently lost two dear friends: “Match Game”’s Brett Somers, and Newhart’s TV wife, Suzanne Pleshette.
“She was a beautiful, outrageous, hilarious, talented woman,” Wallace said of Pleshette. “She loved to swear and she was one of the funniest people I have ever known.”
Born in Creston, Iowa, Wallace began acting in 1968 with the improvisational group, The Fourth Wall. “Bewitched” and “Love, American Style” were among her early TV credits.
“[CBS head] Bill Paley had seen me on ‘The Merv Griffin Show,’” Wallace recalled. “He kind of made Grant Tinker [the ‘Bob Newhart’ producer] hire me.”
When “Bob Newhart” ended its six-season run in 1978, Wallace appeared on a roster of game shows longer than Santa’s naughty/nice list, from “Match Game” to “Hollywood Squares.” In the ‘80s and ‘90s, she enjoyed recurring roles on “Full House,” “Charles In Charge,” “Alf” and “Seventh Heaven,” and garnered an Emmy nod guest-starring on “Murphy Brown.” She toured as Olive Madison in a gender-opposite “The Odd Couple,” and in “The Vagina Monologues.”
Twenty-two years ago, Wallace was diagnosed with breast cancer, three days after husband Dennis Hawley proposed to her. Wallace survived her cancer, detailed in her 2005 memoir, “Don’t Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way: How I Overcame a Rocky Childhood, a Nervous Breakdown, Breast Cancer, Widowhood, Fat, Fire & Menopausal Motherhood and Still Managed to Count My Lucky Chickens.”
Alas, her husband died of pancreatic cancer in 1992. Wallace is proud of their 20-year-old son, Mikey, a UCLA junior who, like Mom, loves acting.
Wallace lectures on the book circuit. This year alone, she traveled to Vancouver, Maryland, Wisconsin, Houston, Orlando, Palm Springs and Redding. Shelooks forward to appearing in “Nunsense” in Ann Arbor, and “The Sugarbean Sisters” in South Dakota after this season’s “Simpsons” (which records from March through November) wraps.
Tickets for the Chamber breakfast are $30. RSVP: (310) 459-7963.
Residents Upset by Loud Motorcyclists
Starting at about 9 p.m. for the past several months, squads of motorcycles have been rumbling down Sunset Boulevard, and the noise is upsetting many Pacific Palisades residents.
Amy Kalp, who lives on Sunset near Temescal Canyon Road, can’t even hear her television set because the sound is so loud. Sylvia Grieb, owner of the Palisades Letter Shop, complains that the motorcyclists gather at night, revving their engines in the Vons parking lot below where she lives off Sunset and Pacific Coast Highway.
“I know they are having fun, but it’s not the appropriate time,” Grieb told the Palisadian-Post.
Residents have called the Los Angeles Police Department to complain. They believe the motorcyclists may be modifying their exhaust systems to make their bikes even louder. They are also concerned about safety, claiming that they have seen the bikers speeding and performing stunts. In July, Kalp said, she followed a group of motorcyclists from Hollywood to her home, and they were traveling around curves at about 60 miles per hour.
On September 25, 19-year-old Jorge DeDious died in an 11 p.m. crash when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a tree on Sunset near Temescal Canyon.
In response to citizen concerns, the LAPD West Traffic Division (which includes the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades, Westwood, Century City, Venice, Hancock Park and the Miracle Mile) has dispatched two task forces, where police monitor traffic in a certain area at a specific time.
On September 17, the division sent a special detail to the Palisades that worked from 7:30 to 10:45 p.m., “using a plain car equipped with radar to determine the actual speed, and a motor officer and a patrol vehicle as chase vehicles,” said Senior Lead Officer Michael Moore. “At approximately 9:38 p.m., 15 motorcycles rode west on Sunset. The motorcycles were traveling within 5 mph of the posted speed limit and were not altered to make excessive noise.”
On Wednesday, October 15, police were stationed on Sunset Boulevard between PCH and Capri Drive from 9 p.m. to midnight. They issued 25 citations to motorcyclists and other motorists for speeding and traffic violations, said Nancy Lauer, captain of the West Traffic Division.
“We observed approximately 30 to 40 motorcycles assembled at the gas station on PCH and Sunset,” Lauer added. “The majority conformed to all traffic laws.”
She continued, “We anticipate closely monitoring the area in the future in order to prevent traffic violations. We remain very sensitive to the community’s concerns regarding motorcycle safety.”
In the West Traffic Division, three motorcyclists, including DeDious, have died as a result of an accident this year, Lauer said.
“We have limited resources and we try to distribute them as fairly as we can,” she said. “When deploying resources, we have a host of safety concerns to deal with. We have to balance our resources, and we are doing our best.”
As for the noise, Lauer said, “Our experience has been that the vast majority of bikers have not adjusted their exhaust systems. It’s an exception, not the rule.”
If police hear a motorbike making sound above the legal limit of 90 decibels, the motorcyclist is cited and asked to take his bike into the shop to have it fixed.
Officer Moore said there could be a perception that the motorbikes have altered exhaust systems because “the number of motorcycles plus the time of night increases the sound output.”
Haldis Toppel, president of the Marquez Knolls Property Owners Association, lives about a mile from Sunset and said she too can hear the motorcycles: “I can only imagine what this sounds like when you live right on Sunset and want to go to sleep at some earlier hour of the night.”
Toppel doesn’t think the current law of 90 decibels addresses the noise problem when there are multiple bikers riding together.
“We need to measure and regulate the decibel level generated by multiple machines riding together through a noise ordinance that could take into account the time of day,” she said.
Local Democrat Candidates Look Ahead
The November 4 election, dominated for two years by the Presidential campaign, will have significant repercussions in our congressional and California legislative districts. Following are reports on our three local representative elections.
Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman, representing California’s 30th Congressional District, which includes the Westside of Los Angeles County and the West Valley, is running unopposed in Tuesday’s election.
Waxman, who entered Congress in 1974, has been chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the investigative committee of the House, since 2007. He also serves as Ranking Member of the Committee, which conducts investigations into a wide range of subjects, from the high cost of prescription drugs to waste, fraud, and abuse in government contracting.
State Assembly Race
By DANIELLE GILLESPIE
Staff Writer
California State Assemblywoman Julia Brownley said she’s “looking forward to winning” Tuesday’s election and serving another two years. Brownley, a Democrat who lives in Santa Monica, is running against Woodland Hills resident and Republican Mark Bernsley to represent the 41st District.
Bernsley said one reason he decided to run is because he is tired of politicians representing special interest groups. “I want to fix the systems so they work well and are accountable,” said Bernsley, a business and tax lawyer who owns his own firm.
Since Brownley came into office in November 2006, she has focused mainly on education. She is the chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee Two on Education Finance, which reviews all budget matters related to education, and chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Higher Education in the 21st Century, which focuses on the budgets and long-term goals of the UC and Cal State systems.
If re-elected, Brownley will become chair of the Assembly Education Policy Committee. She hopes to pass a bill she introduced this year that will create the Commission for Funding with Accountability, Transparency and Simplicity. The commission would recommend how to make the current budget system for education simpler, more transparent and effective. The bill is currently in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“If this state’s constituents can see how their money is being spent and be convinced it’s being spent wisely, then they might invest more in the education system,” said Brownley, who served on the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board for 12 years and was board president three times.
California does not invest as much in education per pupil as other states, Brownley continued. To have successful schools, class sizes must be smaller so teachers can focus on individual students, and teachers need adequate professional development. “All of this requires funding,” she said.
Bernsley, however, thinks Californians are being taxed enough for education, but the money is not being spent appropriately.
“We don’t know where the money is going, and we need sufficient transparency,” said Bernsley who received his bachelor’s degree in business from the State University of New York at Buffalo and his law degree from New York University. He holds a master’s degree in business from USC.
Bernsley, who’s also a small business advisor, would like the state education budget posted on the Internet, so that constituents can easily track how their money is spent.
Brownley, who has a bachelor’s degree in political science from George Washington University and a master’s degree from American University, has also directed her energies on the environment these past two years. She serves on the Assembly Natural Resources Committee and Budget Subcommittee Three on Environmental Resources.
If re-elected, Brownley plans to focus on solving the shortage in California’s water supply. “We need solutions to our water problems, such as conservation and keeping our streams and watersheds clean and useable,” she said.
Bernsley said a part of his environmental focus would be reducing the harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions. He supports the development of alternative fuel and energy sources. He also thinks executives should have more at stake when their companies are guilty of polluting.
Bernsley, who has a 10-year-old daughter with his wife Erica Marlaine, has not campaigned in Pacific Palisades, but has made appearances in Oxnard, Malibu, Agoura Hills and Santa Monica. His political experience consists of chairing the Woodland Hills-Warner Center Neighborhood Council’s election committee in 2007. He has also written articles for the South Valley Election Alliance newsletters.
Brownley, the mother of two grown children, Fred, 21, a junior at UC Berkeley, and Hannah, 23, who is teaching English in Chile, didn’t have much time to campaign this year because she was in Sacramento working on the budget crisis. She was disappointed that the budget signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in September did not include additional revenue streams.
“I believe very strongly in a balanced approach of both budget reductions and additional revenue solutions,” she said. “We need to have some revenue solutions next year, or we will have to make critical cuts to education and health care.”
The Republicans took an oath not to raise taxes or add fees, Brownley said. To pass a budget requires a two-thirds majority in both the assembly and senate.
“Democrats hold the majority in the assembly, but we do not have the super majority,” said Brownley, who is hopeful more Democrats will be elected to office.
State Senate Race
By LIBBY MOTIKA
Senior Editor
The race to succeed Sheila Kuehl for State Senate District 23 is an open seat contested by three candidates, including former Assembly member Democrat Fran Pavley, Republican Rick Montaine and Libertarian Party member Colin Goldman.
The district, with only 24 percent Republican registered voters, has long been a liberal bastion (51 percent) most recently occupied by Kuehl, who has served eight years in the Senate and six years in the Assembly.
Pavley, who served three terms in the State Assembly, became known for her landmark legislation on global warming that has become a model for other states and countries. She was the author of AB 1493, known as the Clean Car Regulations, and the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32), which will cap greenhouse gas emissions emitted from California.
While out of office, Pavley has been traveling around the country and the world, meeting with government officials on the carbon reduction law, and has served as a senior climate advisor for the Natural Resource Defense Council.
Among the challenges Pavley hopes to address in Sacramento are the increasing water crisis, which is exacerbated by the ongoing drought, a crumbling levee system and the high cost of moving water around the state.
With the luxury of a four-year senate term, which allows for more time to work on policy, Pavley says she would also like to study the critical condition of health care and the poor performance of California schools.
But, she says, it’s all about the budget, a dilemma similar to what she faced her first year in the assembly. “In 2001, the stock market took a dive, we had a $12 billion budget deficit and the energy crisis. We were able to do a combination on the revenue side and with cuts.”
Although much of the budget is negotiated by the legislative leadership and the governor, Pavley will work with the Democratic caucus to promote their priorities and figure out how to fund them. “How we structure a budget may require going back to the ballot,” she says. “We need to build some flexibility in there and spread out the revenue side to reflect the economy now.
“Half of us were all local government officials, who know how to get along. But something happens in Sacramento,” Pavley says, referring to the inability of both parties to work out a budget compromise this summer.
“There are lots of options.” Pavley continues. “Everyone needs to figure this out together. Just for an example, the fastest growing part of the budget is the prison system. We’re spending $40,000 a year to house one person.”
Pavley’s Republican opponent, Rick Montaine. is a technology security analyst and a 39-year resident of the San Fernando Valley. He served on the Winnetka Neighborhood Council from 2004-2007 and has served on the 40th Assembly District Central Committee. His top priorities, if elected, will be creating a business-friendly California for productive industries, balancing the state budget without borrowing from pension funds, and supporting Proposition 98, which prevents government from taking homes or property for private uses.
Libertarian Party challenger Colin Goldman promises a core agenda, which includes restricting the size, power and cost of state government. He says he will fight for the rights of all children to have access to a decent education, including providing “real choice to parents whose children are trapped in failing schools, and a promise to “clean up government, starting by being the only candidate in this race who will not be accepting special interest contributions.”
‘Stairway to Dreams’ Will Soon be Reality
Photo rendering: Architect Rick Poulos/The Arpen Group
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A “Stairway to Dreams” will be constructed from the parking lot between the tennis courts off Frontera Drive up to the Palisades Recreation Center’s Field of Dreams.
Photo rendering: Architect Rick Poulos/The Arpen Group
The dirt trail on the steep hillside leading up to the Palisades Recreation Center’s Field of Dreams from the parking lot off Frontera Drive will soon be converted into a cement “Stairway to Dreams.”
The Palisades Community Center Committee (PCCC), with the support of Pacific Palisades Pony Baseball Association (PPBA) and American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), raised $100,000 to construct a stairway from the lower parking lot between the tennis courts to the playing fields. Construction should begin in the next couple of months.
“It has been our dream to complete this project,” said Bob Benton, PCCC vice chair and PPBA commissioner.
Many people use the trail to reach the fields, and several have fallen. The hillside is especially slippery after it rains, said PCCC chair Mike Skinner.
PCCC, a nonprofit association dedicated to improving the park’s programs and facilities, raised more than $1 million to renovate the Field of Dreams in 2003, and raises about $50,000 annually to maintain the fields, Benton said.
“The staircase is one of the final touches on the overall project,” said Skinner, who also serves on the PPBA board.
About 75 donors gave money for the project, including AYSO and PPBA families and the Palisades Junior Women’s Club. Fundraising began on opening day of the baseball season in March.
“A lot of people saw the need, and they appreciate the park,” said Rick McGeagh, who serves on the PPBA board. Many organized leagues use the four diamonds and grass outfields to play baseball, soccer, softball, flag football and lacrosse.
The six-foot-wide staircase will have side railings and a landing in the middle. The landing was included so that the stairway would not be too steep, McGeagh said. Architect Rick Poulos designed the rendering of the staircase with the assistance of The Arpen Group, a civil engineering company in Granada Hills.
The Los Angeles Department of City Planning told the PCCC it would not approve the permits to construct the stairway until the Pacific Palisades Community Council gave its approval. The Council voted unanimously at last Thursday’s meeting to support the project.
PCCC is in the process of hiring a contractor and is still raising money to make additional improvements to the Field of Dreams, including putting awnings over the bleachers. Donations can be sent to PCCC, 11030 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 203, Los Angeles, CA 90025. Information: (310) 473-2078.
Thursday, October 30-Thursday, November 7
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30
Bernice Bratter and Helen Dennis discuss and sign Project Renewment: The First Retirement Model for Career Women, 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore. This guide for retired career women or those about to make this life change is a friendly support group-style discussion of the psychological pitfalls associated with leaving a life of work.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1
California State Parks and the Will Rogers Ranch Foundation host a birthday celebration in Will’s honor, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Will Rogers State Historic Park. (See story, page 13.)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3
Neil Aitken discusses and signs his book of poetry, The Lost Country of Sight, winner of the 2007 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore.
Horticulturalist Dexter Friede will be guest speaker at the Palisades Garden Club meeting, 7:30 p.m. at the Woman’s Club, 901 Haverford. Public invited. (See story, page 15.)
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6
Monthly Chamber of Commerce mixer, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the law offices of Brett A. Bjornson, 860 Via de la Paz. Public invited. Non-Chamber members: $25.
Palisadian Dan Bienenfeld discusses and signs Align for Life, 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore. Hailed as “The Michaelangelo of Alignment” by Richard Simmons, Bienenfeld has spent over 30 years as a practitioner, teacher, trainer and leader in the field of Structural Integration. His book is a methodical and definitive guide to optimizing the SI process.
John F. Harrington, 84; Writer, Popular Camera Store Owner
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John Harrington
John Francis Harrington, who owned the town’s most popular camera store for nearly 50 years, died peacefully on October 26, near his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 84.
Born on March 12, 1924, in Charleston, South Carolina, John displayed both academic and athletic prowess while attending Bishop England High School. After graduating in 1940, he entered College of Charleston and was quickly named co-captain of the men’s varsity basketball team. His stalwart support for World War II and international diplomacy led him to join the U.S. Navy, where he served from 1942-46 as a Lieutenant Junior Grade (JG) aboard Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) 981. He made eight combat landings.
Under the GI Bill, John returned from active duty in postwar China to complete his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University’s School of Journalism. He also was reunited with Celeste Antoinette Coari, a smart, edgy and eye-catching Chicago native, whom he had met while in Midshipman school. Their acquaintance was made when Celeste’s sister cajoled her to volunteer at a “welcoming luncheon” for new officers—a meal that changed Celeste’s life forever. The couple was married in 1948.
Together, John and Celeste, descendants of turn-of-the-century European immigrants, were determined to move to balmier climes after a fierce snowstorm in Chicago prevented them from delivering their daughter, Cathy, at the hospital of their choice. Soon afterward, John convinced Celeste to load up the family’s 1954 DeSoto sedan with their two children, Pat and Cathy, and drive to California along Route 66.
After deciding to live in Pacific Palisades, the Harringtons purchased their first home for $17,000, settled into married life, and gave birth to two more children, Debby and Kevin.
As an amateur photographer during World War II, John developed a passion for creatively capturing both unconventional and traditional images. With minimal formal training, he understood the key elements of photography, such as arranging and framing objects and distinguishing unique patterns. “I never went anywhere without my camera,” John told the Palisadian-Post, recalling how he chronicled his growing family and the Palisades village. “When my children saw me, they’d put on a fake smile because they knew I was going to photograph them doing something.”
John’s keen business sense, enriched by his enthusiasm for photography, provided the foundation to open Harrington’s Camera Corner, with Celeste, in 1958 at 15428 Sunset (on the corner of Antioch Street). For nearly half a century, this family-operated business was legendary in the Palisades, and so was John Harrington. John served three generations of loyal Palisadian families with witty humor, a deep concern for customer satisfaction, and personal integrity—all of which contributed to the success of the business.
He also had a distinct regard for the privacy of his customers, one of the many reasons dozens of celebrities entrusted him with their printed memories. In an interview with the Post, John reflected on four decades of local retail ownership and fondly described meeting Zsa Zsa Gabor, Peter Graves, Audrey Hepburn, Francis X. Bushman, Tatum O’Neal, Walter Matthau, Paul Henreid, Lady Sylvia Ashley, Dame Gladys Cooper, John Raitt, Gavin MacLeod, Vin Scully, Martin Short, Bob Denver, Adam West, Buckminster Fuller and many others.
Following the death of his wife Celeste in 1992, John was proud to turn the business over to his daughter Cathy so that he could pursue his myriad hobbies and interests—golfing, traveling and photojournalism. But he couldn’t keep himself away, and became a part-time employee until the business was sold in 2005.
In 1997, after John had retired and was enjoying his carefree status, his college classmate Louis Rubin proposed the idea of jointly creating a historical, photojournalistic coffee-table book charting ocean commerce along America’s Southern seaboard. Louis, an essayist, novelist, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, and John, photographer extraordinaire and Louis’ patient editor, set out to investigate the glorious South. From tugboats to battleships, the two men captured the essence of maritime activity, ultimately publishing Seaports of the South in 1998.
John’s charm, grace and generosity represent the end of an era, as his longtime golfing cronies would certainly attest. Ed Jacobson, Vince Mangio (before he died), Wally Miller and John’s best friend Dale Van Vlack played local courses each and every Thursday for over 40 years. Golf strategy sessions were held at Mort’s Deli, where John and Dale met daily to deliberate on top-tier golfers and the PGA Tour. The two were especially appreciative of the much-loved deli worker, Albino, who took great care to satisfy John’s regular order: coffee and a slightly charred plain bagel . . . hold the cream cheese.
John was a loving husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother and friend. He will be deeply missed by his surviving family members, his children and their spouses: Pat and Sandy Harrington, Cathy and Ruben Rodriguez, Debby Harrington, and Kevin Harrington; his grandchildren and their spouses: Diane and Ron Kiino, Dennis Rodriguez, Shaun and Amy Harrington, and Morgan Harrington; and his three great-grandchildren: Liam and Sutton Harrington, and baby-to-be Kiino.
Services will be held on Saturday, November 1, at 10 a.m. at Corpus Christi Catholic Church on the corner of Sunset and Carey. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (www.alzfdn.org). The extended family is deeply indebted to the Palisades community and Corpus Christi Church, both of which have provided immense love and support.
