A critical date is fast approaching as a majority of residents in Palisades Bowl–just west of Temescal Canyon and above PCH–fight to preserve the status quo and save their homes. On August 10, residents received a 60-day notice that owner Eddie Biggs would start the process to convert the ocean-view park to resident ownership. With the October 9 deadline approaching, the recently formed Palisades Bowl Residents Association has released a statement that says in part: “If Biggs is successful, the homeowners will no longer be protected by L.A. City rent control and the residents, who will likely not be able to afford to purchase their lots, will have to abandon their homes and their life savings.” Although Bowl residents own their homes, they pay rent for the land, which is currently under city rent control. Residents would not be required to convert, but if even one resident buys the land under his or her house, rent control would no longer be in effect for the park. Residents on low income (defined as one person making less than $38,000 and two people with an income of $44,000) would still be under state rent control guidelines and would not see their rent increase. Those not considered low income and who do not purchase the land would see their rent increase to fair market value over four years. At an August meeting to explain the conversion, Attorney Richard Close of the Santa Monica law firm Gilchrist & Rutter, who is spearheading the process for the owner, was asked why residents should buy the land. He said that in some cases, mobile-home park members have found that the value of their land increased. David Spangenberg, attorney for Eddie Biggs, spoke to the Palisadian-Post September 15 and was asked the same question. “It makes the most sense for this park,” Spangenberg said. “Pacific Palisades is an expensive place to live. People who have bought these properties, like those who live in a park in Palm Springs, have made so much money. “It becomes a Class A community when residents operate their own community,” Spangenberg added. “I think that Eddie Biggs is trying to make this a first-class mobile park with curb appeal–a beautiful property. It would be a good thing for everyone.” Not everyone agrees with the conversion process. Werner Z. Hirsch, professor of economics at UCLA, said, “In short, capping rents of land on which mobile-homes are placed will lead to an increase in their value, and thereby yield tenants a windfall profit which accrues in addition to benefits from reduced rents.” Many residents in Palisades Bowl are worried that this is a “sham conversion” that will be used to break rent control. Their fears were heightened when they visited Gilchrist & Rutter’s Web site, and read this description of attorney Close: ‘Lead counsel in successful, ground-breaking California case involving conversion of manufactured housing estate (mobile-home park) from rental to condominium resident ownership. Counsels clients with respect to such conversion to increase property value and supersede local rent control, as well as acquisition, financing, sales, tax-deferred sales and rent control litigation-related issues.’ Councilman Bill Rosendahl has called for a one-year moratorium on condo conversions in his 11th District and Councilman Alex Padilla (7th District) has also made a similar motion. Both bills are being held up in the City Council’s housing committee which is chaired by councilman Herb Wesson (10th). Residents from Palisades Bowl have attended neighborhood council meetings in Wesson’s district in order to ask the residents to put pressure on Wesson to move the bills forward. If the bill is passed, it could give the residents at least a year to look for other options to stop the conversion (assuming mobile-home parks are included in the condo moratorium). In California, from San Diego to Vallejo, mobile-park residents are being challenged with similar problems: conversions, higher rents and closures. According to Glen Bell of Neighborhood Friends which is an organization advocating for mobile-park homeowners’ rights, in parks where rent control has been superseded there are continual increases in space rents with 90-day notices. Some communities have experienced 400 percent increases within a year. In Santa Cruz, rent control was in place for the mobile-home parks, but Manufactured Home Communities (MHC), owned by Chicago billionaire Sam Zell, bought several and started raising rents in defiance of rent control. The city took MHC to court and won. The company appealed that the rent control ordinance was unconstitutional and claimed the city was not properly enforcing its own ordinance. After nine appeals (the city winning them all) city government decided they could no longer afford the court battle. In September 2003, the Santa Cruz City Council repealed its 34-year-old mobile-home rent control law after spending nearly $750,000 fighting MHC in court. The city manager estimated that it would cost the city $100,000 a month to continue fighting the lawsuit. Cities have limited resources for court battles, unlike mobile park owners who consider these parks ‘cash cows,’ according to Glen Bell. If a park has 100 pads and each homeowner is paying $1,000 a month, the park’s owner makes $100,000 a month. Increased rents for many of the Palisades Bowl residents could be disastrous. About 40 percent of the residents are senior citizens, and there’s a cross-section of people with varied occupations such as teachers, writers, production assistants, accountants, lawyers, consultants, artists and, of course, surfers. Palisades Bowl has existed for close to 50 years, but has never had a homeowners’ association, until now. ‘It’s friendly here,” said Bowl resident Jeff Stillman. “Everyone waves to everyone else, but we’ve never had a need for an association.’ ‘This place has historical significance,’ Stillman noted. ‘It’s one of the real old funky places left along the coast.’ Another obstacle to homeowner conversion in Palisades Bowl is the potential liability related to the unstable hillside above the park (below Asilomar). At the conversion meeting in August, a resident asked Close who would be responsible if the park did convert and the hillside comes sliding down one day, causing millions of dollars of damage. ‘Biggs and the homeowners’ association,” Close answered. The Palisadian-Post recently received an e-mail from Clarke Johnston, a resident at Vallejo Mobile Estates (VME) in Vallejo. He said, ‘My concerns relate to the steps being taken by Eddie Biggs, owner of VME. He has served notice to the residents of VME that he intends to go forward with a ‘conversion’ process for the facility. One of the main reasons for this step is the sidestepping of local rent control ordinances and deferring to state regulations in the area. Mr. Biggs has obtained counsel in the form of Gilchrest & Rutter, a Santa Monica firm.’ Johnston said he appealed to the City of Vallejo for help. ‘They may have a specific role to play [because] residents are low-income and may not be able to afford decent counsel in this matter; certainly not in the same league as Gilchrist & Rutter.’ In addition to Palisades Bowl sharing the same owner, the same lawyer for the owner and a possible resident conversion with VME, the mobile-park owners also share similar liability issues: while the Bowl has an unstable hillside, Vallejo Mobile Home sits in a flood plain that continues to worsen. ‘The landlord has taken no steps in order to prevent further flooding problems,’ Johnston said. Spangenberg said that Biggs has taken steps to help stabilize the hill below Asilomar. He has apparently teamed with the owner of adjacent Tahitian Terrace and the City of Los Angeles to hire a jointly funded geologist to investigate the slide. “We’re waiting for the city to draft the documents,” Spangenberg said. In addition to mobile parks in California being faced with conversion and increased rents, many are being closed. In July, the San Diego Union reported that the owner of the Jade Bay Mobile Lodge in Chula Vista had filed for bankruptcy and plans to close the park in April 2007. The owner claimed that mobile-home parks are no longer feasible. His park has 55 homes occupied by mostly low-income and senior citizens who will be forced to move. Jade Bay sits on prime land on Chula Vista’s westside, which leads to speculation that more money could be made from developing the land than keeping it as a mobile trailer park. There are 32 parks in Chula Vista and there is concern that Jade Bay could set a precedent. In Santa Monica, residents of the 87 units in Village Trailer Park at 2930 Colorado Blvd. received a notice stating that their park will close July 31, 2007. On August 24, the Santa Monica Mirror reported that the city challenged the park’s notice of closure, arguing that it failed to first obtain a local change-of-use permit. Close, the same attorney who is handling the Palisades Bowl conversion, maintains that California state law “pre-empts local regulation of a change-of-use termination.” “It’s the largest land grab in California,” said Glen Bell of Neighborhood Friends, who is advocating for the rights of mobile-park residents. The plight of mobile-home residents goes well beyond California. In April, USA Today reported that ‘Mobile-home parks around the USA are being scooped up by developers, depleting affordable housing in many booming real estate markets and spurring states and counties to help residents being evicted. ‘From Las Vegas to the Tampa Bay area, the scarcity and rising price of land have made mobile-home parks a hot commodity. Developers are replacing the trailer parks with condominiums, town houses, strip malls and big-box stores.’

Benny, the pot-belllied Vietnamese pet pig, has been served notice. Unless city officials intervene, he may no longer live on upper Albright with the family that adopted him: Kimberlee Smith, her daughters Quinn, 6, and Lily, 10, and her father Bob Hynes (known as Poppa to the neighborhood kids). In order to rid the neighborhood of the pig, a neighbor made an anonymous call to animal regulation officers, who then visited the Smith residence to investigate and found no problems with the pig living there. The anonymous neighbor then made a call to the L.A. Department of Health Services, which conducted its own investigation and also found no problems with the Smith’s pet. Next, the neighbor called the L.A. Department of Building and Safety and found an obscure regulation that requires a minimum amount of land to house a swine. “I can’t image anyone being that awful that they would want to take our pig away,” Smith said. “If it’s a neighbor and they were unhappy, why didn’t they just come talk to me? It’s so cowardly.” Last December, Smith and her daughters moved to their current location after having rented for a year at another location in the Palisades. Smith, who is recently divorced, acquired two pot-bellied pigs from a grower in Iowa for $600 apiece and had them flown to Los Angeles as Christmas presents for Quinn and Lily. In May, Benny’s brother Chubby contracted leukemia and had to be put down. Benny seems to have adapted well, running around the yard with the family’s three dogs: Ella, a greater Swiss mountain; Rif, a Lowehen; and Gigi, a Wheaton terrier. “Benny’s the cleanest, most docile and well-behaved of our menagerie and will be sacrificed to the gods of zoning because someone feels like it,” Smith said. On September 20 Smith spoke to Tom Sze, a building inspector who had come to investigate the pig on the property. Sze told Smith that in order to keep a swine or other livestock one needs an acre of land. Smith argued that Benny was not swine, but Sze told her, “That’s debatable.” When contacted by the Palisadian-Post, Sze directed the reporter to the Building and Safety Department’s public affairs officer. The officer did not respond to repeated phone calls. Smith reasons that swine is defined in the dictionary as a omnivorous mammal (Benny is a vegetarian) descended from the wild boar. Webster’s Dictionary defines a potbellied pig as “a breed of small pigs originating in southeastern Asia, having a straight tail, potbelly, swayback and black and white coat. The California Potbellied Pig Association, established in 1989, recommends that prospective owners be aware that pigs live 10 to 20 years and that a shaded and securely fenced area in the yard is a must. Potbellied pigs may weigh more than 150 pounds by four to five years of age. When a Post reporter visited Benny last Friday, the dogs barked and jumped but the pig trotted over and calmly waited. “He’s meek and docile and he’d never bite,” Smith said. “He thinks he’s a dog.” When Smith receives the compliance notice telling her Benny must be removed, which is supposed to happen this week, she can then appeal it before the planning department, asking for a variance, in order to allow the family to keep their pet. The Smiths would appreciate community support of the variance.

Bolstered by new state education revenue, Palisades Charter High School has substantially increased spending on new infrastructure, academic programs and instructional materials this school year. Administrators and board members expect additional revenue to offset the projected spending growth. According to the school’s approved budget for the 2006-2007 school year, total spending at PaliHi will increase by 15 percent this year to $21.1 million. The total revenue received by the school rose 8 percent to $20.7 million. The school’s surplus fell by 16 percent to $2.6 million. The relocation and construction costs of adding nine new bungalow classrooms account for one of the largest expenditures this year. PaliHi acquired the trailers, which can be used as classrooms, from the Los Angeles Unified School District without cost. But PaliHi has had to pay substantial costs to prepare the trailers for classes. The PaliHi board originally allocated $350,000 for the classrooms in this year’s budget, but an additional $150,000 will likely be needed to furnish the trailers, said Amy Held, executive director, who is overseeing the project. The classrooms are not expected to be ready for use until the beginning of next semester, but they have already started a debate on campus. Some teachers and administrators want to use the classrooms to primarily reduce student-teacher ratios while other faculty and staff want to reduce teacher-traveling. The short supply of classrooms on campus means that several dozen teachers do not have their own classrooms. ‘It’s premature to say how the classrooms are going to impact either. It’s obviously going to positively impact the school,’ said Held. School enrollment is near capacity levels with more than 2,700 students. At a board meeting last week, members suggested that reducing student-teacher ratios would probably not be easily solved until next school year. Spending on instructional material and supplies increased by 46 percent this year to more than $300,000. Classrooms will benefit in the form of new world atlases, updated maps of the solar system and dry erase-boards, for example. PaliHi allocated $200,000 to buy new textbooks. According to Mark Snyder, a counselor and co-chair of the budget committee, the school has spent nearly $1 million over the past three years on the best textbooks. ‘Right now, every kid has the most up-to-date textbooks,’ Snyder said. ‘One of the benefits of becoming financially independent is to put more money back into the classroom. And we want to continue to direct more funds to the classroom.’ The board committed $190,000 in additional teacher salaries to expand PaliHi’s Academic Watch, a three-year-old program that targets low-performing students entering the ninth grade. First-year students that earned less than a ‘B’ in any middle school class are required to participate. Because the program requires teachers to work in the summer and extra hours during the school year, extra funding was needed. Teachers in Academic Watch develop strategies to increase reading comprehension, time management and other study techniques. Currently, 400 students participate in the program, and there is discussion of requiring all of next school year’s first-year class to join Academic Watch. But expanding the program would require significant increases in spending. Renegotiated contracts with food vendors Subway and Domino’s Pizza will reduce the impact of the cafeteria’s losses at Pali. The board’s decision to pay cafeteria workers full-time salaries and benefits has also added large costs to the school’s budget. Last year, the cafeteria lost $280,000 and is expected to lose $200,000 this school year, according to Greg Wood, the school’s chief business officer. PaliHi recently submitted an application for Measure R funds to LAUSD that could bring more than $1 million to the school this year. The District offers funds to schools that serve students who come from highly overcrowded schools. But the exact requirements of meeting Measure R were a source of contention last year when LAUSD rejected PaliHi’s application for $1 million in funding. Nearly 41 percent of PaliHi students come from severely crowded schools, and PaliHi administrators expect that their application will be accepted this year. The school is also applying for more funding from the state in the form of Mandated Costs Reimbursement. After years of not offering schools the funds, the state is now offering to pay schools back for meeting state education requirements. When Pali incurs costs from administering the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), for example, the school can now be reimbursed. School officials said that $400,000 could return to the school’s coffers if the state approves their application.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 Pacific Palisades Community Council meeting, 7 p.m., Palisades Branch Library, 861 Alma Real. Public invited. Palisadian Andy Kelly, Distinguished Scholar of English and Medieval Studies at UCLA, will discuss his controversial new book, “Satan: A Biography,” 7:30 p.m., Corpus Christi Church, corner of Sunset and Carey. Public invited. Villa Aurora will host a panel discussion on Kurdish Life in Turkey and Beyond with Feuchtwanger Fellow Zeynel Abidin Kizilyaprak, Writer-in-Residence Sherko Fatah and Freimut Duve (chairman of the board of Villa Aurora), 7:30 p.m. at the Villa Aurora in Paseo Miramar. For reservations ($10/free for members), call 573-3603. Shuttle service starts at 7 p.m. from along Los Liones Drive, just north of Sunset. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story,” a Theatre Palisades production directed by Paula LaBrot and starring Joshua Brandenburg, 8 p.m. at Pierson Playhouse, corner of Haverford and Temescal Canyon Road. Plays every Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., through October 8. Ticket reservations: 454-1970. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 Slightly-used book sale, hosted by Friends of the Library, 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Palisades Branch Library parking lot, 861 Alma Real. The Pacific Palisades Historical Society will host a 90-minute tour of the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine off Sunset, starting at 10 a.m. The tour will cover the upper and lower levels of the Shrine, and is open to the public. Admission and parking is free. Reservations: Alice Beagles at 454-2101. (See story, page 14.) MONDAY, OCTOBER 2 First Monday Jazz, 7:30 to 10 p.m. at Mort’s Oak Room on Swarthmore. Music from the Great American Songbook, Be-Bop and more from local Pacific Palisades players. No cover charge. Contact: Bill Minderhout at 454-9950. Medical entomologist Mike Glassey will share some of his knowledge about bugs with members of the Pacific Palisades Garden Club at their first meeting of the fall, 7:30 p.m. at the Woman’s Club, 901 Haverford. (See story, page 14.) TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3 Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association board meeting, 7 p.m., Rustic Canyon Recreation Center. Public invited. Agenda items include new construction in the 200 block of Amalfi, construction on Stassi Lane and Kingman Avenue, Saturday night firework events in Pacific Palisades, an update on the Canyon Emergency Preparedness Program, a graffiti report and an update on the Hideout. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5 John Badham and Craig Modderno sign “I’ll Be in My Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Directors and Actors,” 7:30 p.m., Village Books on Swarthmore. How do directors elicit the best performances from difficult and terrified actors? The authors offer proven techniques to get actors to give their best performances, including the 10 best and 10 worst things to say. Badham directed John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” in 1977. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6 Full moon hike in Temescal Gateway Park, 6:30 p.m. Meet in the front parking lot for a 1-mile hike (about 2 hours) lit by the Harvest Moon. Bring water and a jacket; flashlight optional. Admission is free, parking is $5. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Tuesday, October 10 Michael Patrick MacDonald, author of All Souls: A Family Story signs the continuation of his family saga, Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under. MacDonald recalls a one-of-a-kind social history of the 1980’s including the punk music scene. His two trips to Ireland, the first as an alienated young man who has learned to hate shamrocks with a passion, and the second with his extraordinary ‘Ma,’ are healing journeys unlike any other in Irish American literature. Thursday, October 12 Melissa Clark signs her novel, Swimming Upstream, Slowly. Sasha hasn’t slept with anyone in more than two years, but her body has unwittingly hosted a medical anomaly known as ‘lazy sperm.’ Now she must summon the courage to revisit her past loves as her future takes shape within her. Campfire program “Nighttime Tricks to Find Treats,” 6:30 p.m. in Temescal Gateway Park. Meet at the campfire center and discover what tricks the park animals use to find their food and survive. Celebrate the campfire tradition with stories, songs and marshmallows. Bring a blanket and jacket. Parking: $5. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13 Chamber of Commerce quarterly networking breakfast ($10), hosted by Barbara Allen, E.A. Tax Preparation, 8 a.m. at Aldersgate Retreat, 925 Haverford. Chamber members only. RSVP required by October 11 to 459-7963. No walk-ins.

A Web site run by the L.A. County’s Department of Beaches and Harbors could easily give hope to visitors of Will Rogers State Beach’unless they’ve visited that beach recently. The Web site promises “substantial completion” of Mission-style concession stands, promenades and playgrounds by March 2006. That deadline has passed and so have countless other benchmarks for the County’s $12-million project to upgrade the beach’s aged infrastructure. The Will Rogers County Lifeguard Station remains gutted. The parking lot’s eastern half has been a graveyard of uprooted concrete, even during the height of this summer beach season. There are no Mission-style concession stands. No promenades. And no playgrounds. “This is a boondoggle,” said Stuart Muller, a longtime resident and Palisades Community Council member. “That thing was supposed to open this summer.” County officials insist that construction at Will Rogers will be completed by May 2007, but a recent and unexpected discovery has already slowed down construction with uncertain consequences on the project’s timeline. Late this summer (officials could not say when specifically), crews working for the County discovered a City-owned sewer main beneath the Will Rogers parking lot. Because the County is repaving the parking lot and installing an underground natural gas pipeline, the sewer system poses obvious and unplanned obstacles. The County and City have since been discussing ways to minimize the sewer’s impact on County plans. As part of an agreement reached this month, the County has agreed to reinforce the City’s sewer. “The sewer line issue did not stop work completely,” said Ken Pellman, a public information officer with the Department of Public Works at the County. According to the County, the renovation of the Lifeguard headquarters and reconstruction of nearby public restrooms were not affected by the sewer. But other factors have also contributed to delays, said Dusty Crane, a project manager of Will Rogers for the County. She said the worse-than-expected state of the Lifeguard headquarters has meant slower reconstruction. Crane also said that an underground passage at Chautauqua was not on County maps, but it is unclear what effect this will have on the Will Rogers project. The County awarded the Will Rogers Improvement Project to Tarzana-based contractor Gonzales Construction in November 2005. And that company’s crews have handled all construction at Will Rogers since it began in December 2005, including reinforcing the City’s sewer. It is unknown how much this summer’s unanticipated changes to the project will contribute to already expensive construction costs. When the County originally approved the project in 1999, it allotted $4.9 million for construction costs. But since then industry costs have skyrocketed. In fact, when the County officially awarded Gonzalez Construction the contract in 2005, they agreed to pay $8.3 million. The decision last May to construct a natural gas pipeline underneath the Will Rogers parking lot added nearly $400,000 in extra costs to the project. The natural gas will be used to fuel County construction and Lifeguard vehicles at Will Rogers’ maintenance yard, west of Temescal Canyon. As of May 2006, changes to the County’s original contract have meant $1.4 million for Gonzalez Construction, bringing the County’s total projected costs to more than $12 million. The lucrative contract awarded to Gonzalez could, in part, be attributed to a lack of competition. Only two companies submitted bids for the County’s contract in the summer of 2005. A source knowledgeable of the County’s deal said that was an unusually low’but not unprecedented’number of bids. County Spokesperson Pellman defended the County’s contract process. “We do our best to get as many [bids] as possible. But if our contract experts don’t think we’ll get better bids, we’ll go ahead with the best current bid we have. “Public Works is working aggressively with the contractor to mitigate the delay impacts of the issues encountered during the parking lot renovation to assure that the overall project will still be complete prior to the 2007 summer season as originally planned.’ According to Scott Grigsby, the Lifeguard captain at Will Rogers Beach, the construction delays have had only a negligible impact on Lifeguard’s services this past summer. Lifeguard staff have operated out of temporary trailers during the refurbishment, and staffing levels were not changed. But for Muller, who represents the area of Pacific Palisades bordered by Will Rogers Beach, the County’s assurances are not credible. “I really think we have to get our elected representatives on board here. We have to shake the tree because all I want to do is finish this project.” ————————– Reporting by Max Taves, Staff Writer. To contact, e-mail: reporter@palipost.com