‘How do you know who you are if you don’t know where your family came from?’ This question inspired Pacific Palisades resident Lisa Rosenbaum to write her first novel, ‘A Day of Small Beginnings,’ about a Polish-American Jewish family’s search for roots. Rosenbaum will discuss her book on Thursday, November 9, at 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore. Published by Little, Brown, it has been selected by Barnes & Noble as one of 17 books highlighted in the ‘Discover Great New Writers’ program for the 2006 holiday season. The novel opens in 1906 in a small Jewish cemetery in Zokof, Poland, where young Itzik Leiber wakens the spirit of Friedl Alterman from death. Trapped in the world between life and death, Friedl helps generations of the Leiber family unlock the mysteries of their past. Zokof is a fictionalized version of Rosenbaum’s in-laws’ rural hometown of Zwolen, southeast of Warsaw, which she visited in 1995. ‘I’m not sure I would have dared to set it there if I hadn’t visited,’ she said, adding that her novel ‘gives you a flavor of what it’s like there–how the people look at you, how they respond to you.’ The idea for the book, however, started with a story her own uncle Lloyd Rodwin told about his trip to Poland in the late 1970s. As an MIT professor, he had been invited to speak at Warsaw University. Following the talk, he asked a driver who had been hired for him to take him to a town called Lomze, the birthplace of his father (Rosenbaum’s grandfather). ‘When they arrived at a small city with a cathedral, he realized he didn’t know of a single landmark by which he might recognize his father’s world,’ Rosenbaum writes at the beginning of her book. ‘The story, scarcely an anecdote, suggested to me something so uniquely part of the American experience, the loss of one’s family history once the journey to the New World has been made. I wondered, what if a gatekeeper had remained in the Old World to tell the tale. And so began ‘A Day of Small Beginnings.” Rosenbaum has worked as both a choreographer and a lawyer. She studied religion and philosophy at New York University and completed postgraduate work in international relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She and her husband, Walter Lipsman, have two daughters, Ariana and Maya.

The Palisades Community Council passed a resolution unanimously last Thursday that calls on the Los Angeles School Police Chief and the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District to consider reassigning an investigated school police officer based on parent and community concerns. The LAUSD Board met Tuesday in a closed session to examine the record of Officer John Taylor and the LASPD’s refusal to reassign him. The results of that meeting are not yet publicly available. According to District records, the LAUSD has spent more than $152,000 in legal expenses for two existing lawsuits in which Taylor is a defendant. The Community Council’s decision came weeks after parents and community members grew frustrated with the officer’s continued presence in Pacific Palisades despite an ongoing internal investigation. Taylor was involved in a violent confrontation with local youth and adults on September 19 at the Sav-on loading dock on Swarthmore. Two teenagers were arrested and students and adults were pepper sprayed by Taylor during the incident. The L.A. School Police began an internal investigation into his conduct following a complaint of excessive force. The council’s approved resolution will be sent to the Chief of Police and the Superintendent asking that the ‘current atmosphere of tension, upset and concern by parents and students in Pacific Palisades be given due consideration in determining whether Officer Taylor should be reassigned.’ On Tuesday afternoon, the L.A. School Police Department would not comment on the approved resolution because it had not yet received the Council’s letter. The letter was not sent until Wednesday. Janet Turner, a Community Council member, sponsored the original resolution in response to vocal frustration from the community. Her original resolution directly requested that LASPD Chief Lawrence Mannion reassign Officer Taylor based on community concerns. But Council member Harry Sondheim successfully amended that resolution to reflect a less direct tone. Officer Taylor’s long history of excessive-force complaints has been a significant source of concern in the community. In 2002 his superior officer blocked his promotion based on his ‘pattern of excessive force.’ The two current lawsuits allege that he used excessive force. Internal Affairs investigated him three previous times for excessive-force complaints. It is unknown whether he has ever been disciplined as a result of those investigations. The Palisadian-Post’s request for the disciplinary record of Taylor was denied by the LAUSD. For Carolin Herrmann, a Palisades Charter High parent and PTSA treasurer, the council’s decision was a relief. ‘I was on the same page with the council. I want him to be reassigned during this investigation.’ Bruce Ishimatsu, a PaliHi parent, was a vocal supporter of the resolution and instrumental in drumming up support for it. But he was surprised how quickly the council passed the resolution. ‘It articulates a message from our community that the School Police need to hear. It was the right decision,’ he said. The resolution was supported by 18 council members. Paul Glasgall and Susan Nash abstained from the vote. Nash said that she understood both sides of the issue, but she did not want to interfere with Taylor’s right to ‘due process.’ Glasgall said that although the resolution targets this specific officer, it sends a ‘bad message to the police.’ Originally a wary voter, council member Jack Allen eventually voted in favor of the resolution because the issue had become ‘so important’ for community members. At two previous council meetings, parents and students rejected the School Police’s decision to not reassign Officer Taylor out of the area. As a patrol officer, Taylor serves the Palisades’ public schools and areas of high student concentration. He is not assigned to a specific school. ‘We were not taking a position whether he is guilty or not,’ Allen said. ‘And I don’t think it’s a denial of due process. It’s a routine in a lot of police departments to reassign officers during controversial investigations.’ The Palisades Community Council has no legal power, but it is recognized as the community’s only representative political body. Council members are elected from eight geographical areas in the Palisades, joining representatives from a cross-section of civic groups. The internal investigation into Taylor’s behavior could take as long as nine weeks. A large backlog of other internal investigations at the School Police department could delay the investigation further.

Despite a four-month delay caused by a planning error, L.A. County representatives asserted last week at a Palisades Community Council meeting that plans to refurbish Will Rogers State Beach will be completed on schedule in May 2007. The miscalculation of the depth of an L.A. City sewer located in the eastern end of the beach’s parking lot stopped construction there and is expected to add as much as $200,000 to a more than $12- million project. ‘It was a judgment call by the County,’ said Maria Chong Castillo, a County deputy who oversees the Department of Public Works and the Department of Beaches and Harbors. ‘They [designers] didn’t put [the sewer] in the specs. It’s the County’s fault.’ County and City officials spent much of the four months negotiating an agreement to reinforce the sewer main. Actual construction on the sewer took only three days once the two government bodies reached a compromise. That construction was completed September 21. Beyond the additional costs, that mistake could mean less certainty for public access to the beach parking lot during the next summer beach-going season. The timeliness of the project might depend on the weather, said Gilberto Garcia of the Department of Public Works, who directly oversees the project. A wet winter could hamper construction during an already tight timeline. According to current projections, the Lifeguard headquarters (at Potrero Canyon) and a nearby restroom should be completed by January. Construction on those structures was unaffected by the delay, Garcia said. By next May, the County expects the completion of Mission-style concession stands, refurbished bathrooms, a rebuilt Lifeguard substation, repaved parking lots, and a natural gas pipeline and vehicle filling station. To meet the County’s timeline and avoid financial penalties, the contractor, Gonzales Construction, has hired more workers and has begun work on multiple projects simultaneously. Originally, construction of the project’s various structures was planned to be completed after the parking lots were repaved. But now workers are constructing new restrooms, concession stands and lifeguard substations concurrently with the parking lot construction. ‘We need accountability,’ said Stuart Muller, Community Council member. ‘We’re not going to get it for the past mistakes. But we have to make sure the clock is ticking.’ Muller had invited County representatives to answer community concerns at last Thursday’s council meeting. Council members expressed frustration with the escalating costs of the project and the lack of any visible progress. ‘What hours do the crews work?’ asked Alice Beagles, a council member who lives above the ocean. ‘I never see them.’ County officials said at the meeting that the sewer miscalculation stopped substantial work at the project, but that crews have returned to work. Muller plans to tour the facilities with the project’s managers. He said he wants to have a first-hand understanding of the construction’s improvement. When the County originally approved the project in 1999, $4.9 million was set aside for construction costs. But the region’s construction boom has meant fewer bids and higher rates for contractors. By the time the Will Rogers contract was awarded to Gonzales Construction in 2005, the County settled for $8.3 million. That figure does not include the recent additional changes to the contract. Reporting by Max Taves, Staff Writer. To contact, e-mail: reporter@palipost.com

Next week’s general election to replace termed-out Assemblywoman Fran Pavley pits two candidates in a contest that is as predictable as it is unlikely. Like most state assembly districts, AD 41’s gerrymandered boundaries mean limited competition between political parties. The District stretches along the coast from Santa Monica to Oxnard and runs inland from Pacific Palisades to Tarzana, encompassing Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Woodland Hills and Encino. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 19 percent, and that registration gap has helped ensure Democratic success for decades. It has also meant that the Democratic primary has all but decided the winner of the general election. If the past is any indicator, then that’s good news for Julia Brownley, the Democratic candidate and president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board. In what might be considered one of the state’s most improbable contests, the liberal education advocate and environmentalist is running against Republican Tony Dolz, an activist opposing illegal immigration. Brownley, a former marketing executive, won an expensive, five-way Democratic primary last June. She has spent nearly $600,000 during her campaign, but only a small fraction of that amount since her primary success. Perhaps as a sign of confidence in victory next Tuesday, she has contributed more than $50,000 of her own campaign’s war chest to other Democratic campaigns. Strong support from local Democratic heavyweights Pavley and State Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) helped Brownley compete against better-financed competitors in the primary. Brownley has been an elected SMMUSD Board member since 1994, and she has made improving education one of the cornerstones of her candidacy. Among her education goals are lowering student-teacher ratios and increasing California’s low per-pupil spending, which she blames for the state’s low achievement. ‘The state needs to make a more significant investment in education,’ Brownley told the Palisadian-Post on Tuesday. ‘California ranks 46th in education spending and 48th in achievement. We need to look at how revenue can be enhanced.’ She has suggested that she would favor easing the rules for raising parcel taxes that fund education. State law mandates that most new property taxes must be approved by a two-thirds vote. In most states, such increases require only simple majorities. In her campaign, Brownley has also prioritized conserving the environment and expanding mass transit. She wants to raise water-quality standards by reducing urban runoff and hopes to continue Fran Pavley’s legacy of air-quality legislation by promoting the use of alternative fuels and high-efficiency vehicles. She strongly opposes the proposed LNG facility off Malibu’s coast. She wants to reduce congestion on the District’s freeways by extending the light-rail Expo line to Santa Monica and expanding local bus routes. She is endorsed by the Palisades Democratic Club, the California Democratic Party and several environmental and labor groups, including the Sierra Club and the California State Federation of Labor. In contrast to Brownley’s more broad political focus, her competitor Tony Dolz has focused his campaign exclusively on the perils of illegal immigration. Dolz, a resident of Santa Monica, said that he became committed to stemming the flow of immigrants after reading the 9/11 Commission Report, which recommended stricter border control. He speaks about illegal immigration with a sense of apocalyptic urgency. He attributes almost every state woe to illegal immigration, including budget deficits, high health care costs, traffic congestion, terrorism and environmental degradation. But he offers few details of plans for legislative action that do not intersect with stopping illegal immigration. ‘I care about the environment,’ Dolz told the Palisades Republican Club gathering late last month. ‘What about the millions of toilets that are being flushed because of illegal immigrants?’ Two years ago, the Cuban-born legal immigrant said he stopped working full-time on his online business to dedicate more time to the Minuteman Project, an anti-illegal immigration group, and to run his campaign for state assembly. His exact relationship with the Minutemen is clouded by conflicting accounts. Dolz describes himself on his Web site as a ‘founding member of the Minuteman Project,’ but a Minuteman spokesperson said that title was inaccurate. The spokesperson did say that Dolz had been an early member of the group. Dolz’s job description on the ballot has been the target of scrutiny in newspapers statewide. In campaign literature and the ballot, he describes himself as a ‘national-security analyst,’ which observers have said is misleading because Dolz considers writing articles about illegal immigration for anti-immigration Web sites to constitute national-security analysis. He has also never received money for ‘national-security’ analysis. There is no publicly available campaign finance data for Dolz. It is unknown how much his campaign has received. All candidates must disclose campaign contributions and expenditures to the Secretary of State. Dolz is endorsed by the California Republican Assembly, U.S.A. Border Alert and Barbara Coe, the founder of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. Despite numerous debates and candidate forums during the primary campaign, there has been no debate between Brownley and Dolz. Conrad Stefan Frankowski is representing the Liberterian Party in the race. The Woodland Hills-based human resource executive has not campaigned actively. Reporting by Max Taves, Staff Writer. To contact, e-mail: reporter@palipost.com

If running as a Republican this election isn’t hard enough, try running against a well-financed Congressman who has held the same seat since 1974. Enter David Nelson Jones. The candidate, 25, joined the 30th Congressional District race two days before the filing deadline last March after a phone call from the National Republican Congressional Committee. Despite the enormous challenge of defeating incumbent Congressman and Democratic powerhouse Henry Waxman, Jones speaks about the race with excitement. ‘I can’t just let someone walk into office unopposed,’ Jones said at a Palisades Republican Club meeting last month. ‘A congressman should be accountable to his district.’ At that meeting, Jones said that the two issues that drive his campaign are support for Israel and protecting the environment. He criticized Waxman’s slow response to the summer’s Hezbollah-Israeli warfare, and said that if he is elected he will strongly support Israel during Middle East conflicts. Jones said his time as a volunteer with Israeli defense forces in 2001 forged his strong allegiance to Israeli affairs. In the past, Waxman’s relationship with Israel has been criticized as too close, but not too distant. He is a member of the American Jewish Congress and the Guardians of the Jewish Home for the Aged. Jones supports ‘noncoercive’ approaches to cutting greenhouse emissions. He said that protecting the environment is a Republican issue, but that laws that force drastic changes on consumers and producers are ‘not American.’ A native of Missouri, Jones currently lives with his wife, Jill, in Beverly Hills. Since 2005, he has run a legal research firm called Trial Point. He graduated from American University in 2003, where he studied political science. Between 2002 and 2003, he worked as a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee and he was an intern for Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Missouri).

Tabitha, a boutique that carries high-end maternity clothing and baby clothes for children up to 12 months, opened Monday at 1047 Swarthmore, between Village Books and the incoming Andana Shoes and Accessories. ‘It’s maternity clothing, but you can really wear everything even when you’re not pregnant,’ said owner Carly Kamerman, 21. In fact, she was modeling her own merchandise on Tuesday’stylish knit gauchos and a long-sleeved top. Kamerman, a West Hollywood resident, has transformed the 800-sq.-ft. store (formerly occupied by Emerson-LaMay Cleaners) into a bright yellow shabby-chic shop with chandeliers and built-in shelving. Potato vines and jasmine are planted outside her front window. Kamerman, who took fashion and business classes at Santa Monica College, worked ‘a lot of sleepless nights’ to be able to open this week. She credits her contractor, painter, floor man, and designer Glen Charles (who also designed Andana) for their dedicated and quick work. She spent more than she expected–about $100,000–on the remodel, but said the result is exactly what she envisioned. Tabitha features brand names such as Momzee, Serfontaine and Paper Denim & Cloth jeans, Storksak diaper bags, Mama Mio body care products and Bella Bands, which are stretchy belt-like accessories to hold up or on pants. The shop also carries nursing wear, baby slings and Belly Bar nutrition bars. Denim prices range from $60 to $200; dresses are $60 to $150, and shirts are $40 to $100. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Contact: 454-1086.

A national salute to Bob Hope and the military came to fruition last week in San Diego when members of all branches of the armed services and guests gathered to commemorate the many years of entertainment Hope brought to the troops in various war theaters, from World War II to the Gulf War. The event was planned to coincide with the anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944 in which a flotilla known as Taffy III (part of the Seventh Fleet) lost seven of its 13 vessels. Veteran Bob Hope Special entertainer Connie Stevens served as master of ceremonies and welcomed the special guests who were seated onshore next to the carrier USS Midway. Among the celebrants was Palisadian Emil Wroblicky, chairman of the American Legion campaign in California, which raised $100,000 towards funding the project. He was joined by other members of Legion Post 283. The memorial consists of 14 life-size sculptures of military personnel with a sculpture of Bob Hope in the center. Statues of military men and women from the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force were completed by four sculptors and unveiled at the site alongside the USS Midway. The sculpture of Bob Hope was not yet completed, pending final approval of Hope’s widow, Dolores. By reviewing archived photographs and research into Bob Hope’s famous USO tours, the artists captured the common audience postures and provided special attention to historical details representative of rank and service during the various shows.