Will Rogers State Beach is expected to be open this afternoon

A sewage spill midday Tuesday prompted the closure of Will Rogers State Beach by County Public Health officials. This is the second time in three weeks that the beach was closed due to a sewer main break. The beach is expected to be opened this afternoon, pending the results of water tests, said Eric Edwards, the acting chief environmental health specialist with the county. An eight-inch sewer line near the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and West Channel Road broke after a private contractor installed a liner at 135 Ocean Way. Sanitation crews estimated that 431 gallons spilled into an adjacent city catch basin, which is a tributary to the beach. County health crews closed the beach 100 yards on both sides of that tributary. The Los Angeles Times reported that city sanitation crews notified county public health oficials about 3 hours after they discovered the break. This spill was significantly smaller than two spills that occurred on January 19, which collectively spilled 75,000 gallons of raw sewage. Those spills prompted a four-day beach closure. These recent spills come on the heels of a County report, detailing the hazard to public health posed by aging sewer infrastructure and poor communication between sanitation operators and public health officials. As previously reported in the Palisadian-Post, that report estimated that 11.6 million gallons of sewage hadspilled in the Santa Monica Bay watershed since 2002. According to the county’s detailed investigation, only 10 percent of 202 sewage spills since 2002 were properly recorded. No records were found that the county’s Public Health Department was ever notified by local wastewater agencies of spills after they occurred. For up-to-date information on beach safety, visit the County’s public health website: www.lapublichealth.org/beach ———— Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. To contact, e-mail: reporter@palipost.com; Phone: (310) 454-1321 ext. 28.

A guide to the city’s park in lower Temescal Canyon might read: Caution! Beware of dry-rotting pagodas, ramshackle tables, wobbly benches, misfiring water fountains, mud puddles and West Nile Virus! The City Council approved $250,000 to renovate the park in Temescal last June, using Proposition K funds. Progress there awaits a Bureau of Engineering pre-design expected within the month and approval from a local oversight committee. But change seems like a distant reality for park visitors, who have complained about lackluster facilities and deficient upkeep for years. ‘It’s a disaster,’ said Palisadian Ted Mackie who frequently walks his dog through the park. ‘It’s miserably maintained. It doesn’t look like the lawn is fertilized or the bushes trimmed.’ Barbara Kohn, a Palisadian, remembers visiting the park four years ago with her four-year-old grandson. ‘It was so filthy, I couldn’t sit on the benches,’ said Kohn, who was recently appointed by Councilman Bill Rosendahl to help direct funding for city parks within the district. ‘Plus, there were splinters everywhere. I was appalled, and I haven’t been back ever since,’ There are seven pagoda-style picnic areas in the park along Temescal Canyon Road, but few of the areas seem habitable’or even safe’for picnickers. Wooden beams weakened by dry-rot perch precariously above picnic tables’some punctuated by exposed concrete rebar. In fact, yellow tape emblazoned with ‘Caution!’ closed off access to one of the pagodas Wednesday morning. At two upper pagodas, there are no benches or picnic tables. Mini-pools of stagnant water and mud have replaced park benches there, simultaneously repelling humans but attracting mosquitoes. One pagoda has a warning sign from the County Vector Control, urging caution of West Nile Virus. The city’s Department of Recreation and Parks is charged with maintaining the park. In a conversation with the Palisadian-Post Tuesday, Debby Rolland, superintendent of the department’s operations in West L.A., defended the maintenance of park but acknowledged the need for new infrastructure. She said staff crews clean the park daily, but recent community demands to uproot homeless from the area have diverted crews from their normal operations. She also said that staff frequently tries to clean out water to prevent stagnant pools from forming but that a large amount of water from local backyards often clogs drains. ‘The condition of the pagodas is very poor, and the picnic tables are falling apart,’ Rolland said. ‘But they are going to be replaced with Prop. K funding.’ Lower Temescal was one of few parks that was allocated Prop. K money last year, but visitors may not benefit from the new funding until July 2008, according to Neil Drucker, who oversees Prop. K funding for the Bureau of Engineering. The bureau has 142 projects to review for the Recreation and Parks, and construction at lower Temescal will be contingent on the progress of those other projects. He said that a preliminary design of the project is expected to be completed within the month. After that, a group of community members selected by Councilman Rosendahl, called a Local Volunteer Neighborhood Oversight Committee or LVNOC, will draft a final plan and hold three public hearings. ‘Construction has to be awarded by July 2007, but there is no legally mandated completion date,’ Drucker said. ‘The goal would be to have it completed by July 2008.’ ———– Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. E-mail: reporter@palipost.com; Phone: (310) 985-1607 ext. 28.

An application for more than $1 million in funds to address years of delayed maintenance and accommodate expansion of student enrollment at Palisades Charter High School was rejected by the Los Angeles Unified School District in early January. This means that the school’s plans to modernize the library, relieve overcrowding at the cafeteria and build needed lockers will continue to be shelved. L.A. voters have approved several school bonds since 2004, including Measure R, that promised to repair and upgrade aging school infrastructure, reduce overcrowding and furnish classrooms and libraries at charter schools. But PaliHi’s requests for a piece of the $120 million allotted for charters have been rejected, delaying many school plans. Last year, when PaliHi’s earlier application for nearly $1 million was rejected, school officials felt confused by the district’s budgeting process. The district’s rejection of their application this year has left administrators feeling no less confused’and even a little slighted. ‘They gave us a blanket rejection,’ said Greg Wood, chief business officer at PaliHi. ‘It wasn’t an all-or-nothing application. We were applying for several things.’ Enrollment at PaliHi has increased nearly 60 percent since the early 1990s, and the school has added 400 students, or 16 percent, since 2002, bringing enrollment to 2,780. Because growth in school infrastructure has not kept pace with the increase in enrollment, students and teachers share fewer and fewer resources, say administrators. For example, dozens of teachers do not have their own classrooms. According to school estimates, there are only three library books per student, and hundreds of books lie haphazardly stacked in the library because of a shortage of shelf space. A lack of cafeteria tables means that hundreds of students don’t have tables for lunchtime, and hundreds of students who not have their own lockers. Despite the school’s needs for funding after years of growing enrollment, the district rejected PaliHi’s application because the school had no future plans to continue expanding. ‘The basis for the program was the expansion of charter seats,’ said Ken Hargreaves, director of operations and new construction for LAUSD. ‘In the case of PaliHi, they were not expanding. We don’t try to be hard on the charters, but we have to apply consistency.’ Although the school reserves more than 40 percent of its seats for students from ‘severely overcrowded’ schools throughout the city, the image of Pacific Palisades as a wealthy community unfairly hampers PaliHi’s ability to acquire funding from the district, said Amy Held, executive director. Accessing the district’s bond money has eluded not only PaliHi but many other charter schools as well. ‘At the rate charters are growing’about 20 per year’the district has promised scraps,’ said Gary Larson, spokesperson for the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). ‘And they’re not even allocating that money. That’s frustrating.’ More than half of the $120 million that the district has allocated for charter schools remains unspent or unallocated. Still, Hargreaves said that he has facilitated 11,000 new seats at charters using Measure R funding. The CCSA has met with LAUSD to facilitate funding for charter schools, but PaliHi’s repeated failure to secure district funding has lowered its expectations. ‘This process has dampened our enthusiasm,’ said Wood, who will be tasked with preparing any future applications. ‘It seems like if they want to give you money, you’ll get it. If they don’t, you won’t. That’s the sense I get.’ PaliHi receives the overwhelming majority of its funding from the state Department of Education, which will also reimburse the school for hundreds of thousands of dollars next school year. Sometime this month, Pali students and teachers will begin to use nine new portable classrooms given by the district. The school hoped to use part of its $1-million request to furnish the classrooms, but the school will now have to use its own budget instead. Administrators hope that the classrooms will reduce overcrowding and teacher-traveling. ——— Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. E-mail: reporter@palipost.com Phone: (310) 985-1607 ext. 28.

On a Thursday morning in late January, three homeless men watched as an L.A. Recreation and Parks Department crew cleaned out a homeless encampment in lower Temescal Canyon, near the park bathrooms. Two armed police from the city’s General Services Department were also on hand, along with Palisades Senior Lead Officer Michael Moore. According to Moore, the workers were taking away items that belonged to Seth Greenspan, who is currently in jail because of a probation violation involving a robbery at the nearby Tahitian Terrace mobile home park. The three homeless men knew him. ‘Seth was cool,’ said Randall Bartoshevich. ‘He’s fine when he’s on his meds.’ Bartoshevich and his friends, who identified themselves only as Rudy and Rick, had hidden their belongings once they received the mandatory 72-hour notice of the sweep. They talked openly about their situation. Rick and Rudy said they are both on medication, which doesn’t allow them to work. ‘I’m having a good day, today,’ said Rudy, who is from Burbank. Rick joked, ‘I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell.’ Bartoshevich has neuropathy in his left arm and both legs, which prevents him from standing for long. ‘Medi-Cal wouldn’t give me a wheelchair,’ he said, so he recently bought an electric scooter for $1,050, after saving some of the $900 a month he gets from disability. He plugs in the scooter in at a friend’s house and can travel 40 miles on a six-hour charge. ‘I’m a happy homeless person,’ Bartoshevich said. ‘I don’t bother nobody.’ All three men were fiercely protective of their ‘home area,’ and complained about the homeless who move in when homeless sweeps are conducted in other areas like Santa Monica and Topanga. ‘They steal from us, just like they steal from you,’ Rudy said. ‘We don’t like to wake up and find some of our stuff stolen. We try to run the idiots out.’ The three describe their turf as a ‘retirement center.’ If people are on drugs and come to where they are, the three send them to ‘Meth Mountain,’ their term for the brush-covered terrain below Via de la Olas. ‘You look down from Via at night and you see the fires burning,’ Rick said. ‘That’s where all the dopers hang out,’ Bartoshevich added. The three said they have known each other for close to 20 years. As they chat with a reporter, their radio on a picnic table is tuned in to Rush Limbaugh. ‘He’d like to kill us,’ said Rudy, ‘but we listen to him anyway.’ They make it clear that they have never hurt anyone and that they cause no trouble. If they want to get warm, they light a fire in one of the barbecue grills in the park (just north of PCH). They were upset about the ‘Chico’ fire, which burned a patch of hillside above Temescal Canyon Road in October. The three name each fire after the person who starts it. They claim they had warned one LAPD officer that the man burned candles and was a danger. ‘He was passing out with candles burning.’ ‘Chico’ is no longer in Temescal. ‘We ran him out of this canyon,’ the three said. In early January a year ago, another fire on the other side of the canyon was called the ‘Smiley’ fire. ‘We ran him out, too.’ They understand that homeowners along the canyon rims worry about their homes. ‘We’re angry, too,’ Rudy said. ‘They have a $2-million home, but mine was $22 and I don’t want to lose it, either.’ Randall Bartoshevich wasn’t always homeless. He shared an apartment with his wife until they lost one of their jobs and had to move outside. Then his wife died four years ago, after being struck by a car along PCH. He has no other family. For $435 a month, he could have an apartment downtown on Skid Row, which consists of a small room, a bed and a sink. But, he said, ‘You have to step over bodies on Skid Row. I can’t live there.’ The three friends continued listening to their radio as the sweep continued up the canyon. Six large encampments and several smaller ones were cleaned out. Mattresses, chairs, tables, lawn furniture, wood and other bulky items as well as numerous bags of debris and garbage were hauled out. The load packer, which has a capacity of eight tons, was filled.

As corporations around the world report their 2006 earnings, there’s good news at Norris Hardware, the town’s venerable hardware store and the only third-generation, family-owned business in Pacific Palisades. ‘We had the best sales day in the history of the store on Saturday, the weekend before Christmas,’ said Grant Sears, who runs the store with his wife, Ellen, granddaughter of founder Robert Norris. ‘And we had a very successful year.’ ‘Our sales have been increasing year,’ noted Ellen, who works with her husband in a second-floor office that was once the projection room for the Bay Theater, which closed its doors in 1978 and left the Palisades without a movie house. The two Bay Theater screens were at the far end of the current Norris building (next to the car wash), ‘and the floor slanted down’ for audience viewing, ‘so Dad had to bring dirt in to level the floor,’ Ellen explained. ‘When he was working with the contractor, he saved a [40-ft.] strip of tile from the old sidewalk entrance and left it there when they laid new cement, as a reminder for people who walk by. I think he did it for nostalgia.’ Ellen’s father, Chuck, was the fourth baby born in Pacific Palisades (on September 29, 1923), and his life traced the town’s evolving history from a tent community in Temescal Canyon to hillside mansions in the Highlands. Following its dedication as a permanent town on January 14, 1922, the Palisades began to attract early “settlers” who lived in tents while waiting for the first homes to be built on the adjacent mesas. These first families included Robert Norris and his wife, Clarissa, sister of the town’s founder, Methodist minister Charles Scott. Norris had been called from Long Beach to put in the first plumbing lines and was responsible for nearly all the plumbing installed here those first few years. He also established a plumbing shop on the corner of Temescal Canyon Road and Beverly Boulevard (now Sunset), which in 1925 evolved into Norris Hardware in the new Business Block building. In 1956, Norris moved his store to Swarthmore (in the space now occupied by Benton’s and Dante’s), and in April 1979–with Chuck now in charge–the store moved into its current its 10,500-sq-.ft. location on Sunset. Chuck, who had been stationed in England during World War II after joining the Army Air Corps in 1943, returned to work at Norris Hardware and shortly thereafter met his wife, Vera. They had four children’Bridget, Alan, Ellen and Melissa’and were able to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in the fall of 1996, shortly before Chuck died of cancer. After his death, June Phelps wrote “A Tribute to Chuck Norris” letter to the Palisadian-Post, describing him as ‘a person we thought of as ‘Mr. Palisades.’ There are a number of such local proprietors that over the years have made our Village life special, but Mr. Norris would be a charter member on my list.’ Ellen Norris said that her grandparents built two houses on Kagawa, and that her dad built a house on Las Lomas after the war, with help from his Army buddies. She attended local public schools, graduating from Palisades High in 1971, and continued working at the family store while attending Santa Monica College. She married Grant in 1978 and they now have a home near Calabasas, next door to her brother Alan, who has worked at Norris since his teenage years. Bridget is married and lives in Mar Vista with her two children, and Melissa lives with her mother, her husband and two children in the Palisades. The sisters no longer work at the store. In an interview last week, Grant Sears recalled that after growing up in the South and serving in the military, he moved out to California and eventually worked for United Airlines at LAX for about 15 years. In the mid-1980s, he said, ‘I decided to try something new. I talked to Chuck and Alan, who were running the stores, and asked if I could learn the business. I did a little bit of everything’sweeping floors, selling, working the service counter.’ ‘You swept the floors?’ Ellen said, looking up quizzically from her computer. ‘That’s what I used to do at the old store.’ In 1998, about a year after her father died, Ellen and Grant signed a 20-year lease (‘at very reasonable terms for this area,’ he said) and have since been adding floor employees as well as a general manager and an assistant to help run the business. They currently have 16 full-time employees. When asked what business lessons she learned her father, Ellen replied, ‘Work hard. My dad worked six days a week, and he closed the store on Sunday–that was his day off, but he ended up working around the house. He didn’t have a lot of free time. I don’t work as hard anymore, now that we have managers. But it seemed before that I was working all the time.’ She later added, ‘It’s not easy owning your own business. People think it’s easy, but you have to keep up on all the changing laws and regulations for different products, and you have to worry about finding and keeping good employees.’ Norris pays competitive salaries, provides medical benefits and offers a 401-K plan, she said. Although business is good, thanks to a loyal customer base and continued sales to general contractors and remodelers working throughout the Palisades, the challenge is to stay ahead of the curve by keeping the store stocked with quality merchandise while anticipating ‘what people will need and what they will want in six months when we do our seasonal ordering,’ Grant said. ‘That’s also one of the fun things in this business.’ Even then, there’s no predicting the sudden demand for space heaters during the recent cold snap, nor the persistent lack of demand for rainy-day staples like plastic sheeting and Henry’s roof tar. But ‘hoses are moving,’ Grant said, along with other lawn and garden supplies as people are encouraged to work outside in dry winter weather. What is the number one selling product at Norris? ‘Light bulbs, storage containers and plumbing supplies are the mainstays,’ Grant said. ‘We’re selling the new energy-saving fluorescent bulbs, which are a little more expensive initially, but will save people money over time.’ While managing to attract customers with the appeal of staying in the Palisades to shop and finding good service (‘Go to Home Depot and try to get anybody to help you,’ Grant said), the owners of Norris Hardware are realistic. ‘The family-owned, privately owned hardware store is a dinosaur’it’s going away’and I think it’s going to be a big loss to communities everywhere,’ Grant said. ‘But our business was around and survived the Depression, so it’s a pretty decent business’a good business.’ Looking ahead to 2018 when the lease comes due, he laughed and said, ‘I hope we have 10 more years in us!’

When six Pacific Palisades women wrote Bishop Bertrand Stevens in August 1941 asking for an Episcopalian mission for their town, they likely never envisioned the current 42-acre site that today encompasses St. Matthew’s Parish, complete with an architecturally acclaimed church building, a large school and a state-of-the-art library–all in an idyllic canyon setting that contrasts to the blue sky. Ironically, however, the first church services were not held here on Bienveneda Avenue, north of Sunset. In October 1941, local Episcopalians gathered at the Presbyterian Conference Grounds in Temescal Canyon. However, when the small congregation learned the space was unavailable that coming summer, it subsequently moved to a parishioner’s studio. While the group briefly considered meeting in a tent, it was able to secure a site at the southwest corner of La Cruz and Swarthmore, where a simple redwood church was constructed. According to a 40-year history of St. Matthew’s School compiled by Sallie Smith and Nancy Schroeder, the Parish decided that its ministry would be centered on youth, which meant they needed a building for Sunday School classes and a possible school. Money was raised and a two-story Parish House with classrooms was constructed for $55,000 next to the church. The first classes in the building were pre-school classes, which started May 2, 1949 with 24 children, whose parents paid $15-a-month tuition. Parish board members made the art easels and wood blocks, the women made curtains and another parishioner constructed the sand box. After a year, the school was deemed successful because after paying faculty salaries of $100 a month and spending $367.40 on other improvements there was still a balance of $167.92 in the bank. In 1950, kindergarten and the first four elementary grades were added to the school, bringing the total enrollment to 105. Father Kenneth Worthington Cary reported, ‘We look forward to the addition of grade 5 next fall. Of prime importance now is the development of permanent housing for the preschool, kindergarten and the added grades. We look forward to continued growth and service to children.’ More space was needed for playground and classrooms and an expansion committee was formed. The committee wanted at least five acres and at the time there were three properties for sale in the Palisades that met that requirement: Conway Ranch (where Palisades High School stands), Marquez Knolls acreage (now Marquez Elementary School) and the Garland Ranch, also known as the ‘Southdown.’ A 1949 listing brochure described the Garland Ranch as a ‘Gentleman’s Country Estate for Sale, 85 acres of undulating paradise that provide a thousand vistas to intrigue the eye and banish worldly burdens.’ The Garland property extended from the current St. Matthew’s property on Bienveneda to the beach. The asking price was $250,000 and included, according to the brochure, ‘nine miles of bridal paths, stables and a riding ring, 20 landscaped and planted acres (sprinkled automatically), a commodious and hospitable farm house (fully furnished), brilliantly flood-lighted grounds, a cozy and practical beach cottage, a gateman’s cottage, city water, gas, electricity, telephone and real California sub-tropic climate.’ The expansion committee instantly settled on Garland Ranch, but there was a ‘small’ problem: the combined balance in the school and parish bank account was $125. They needed $5,000 for a 30-day option to buy the estate. According to one report, members went door-to-door to the parishioners and the money was raised. On September 14, 1952 the Swarthmore property where the church stood was sold to the General Telephone Company and the Parish House/school was sold to Vilma B. Ebsen for a dance studio. (The school was later the site for Archer Girls School and now Seven Arrows Elementary.) The church building was cut in half and transported to the new site on St. Matthew’s property. The school was established in the Garland farmhouse, which was eventually renamed ‘Founders’ Hall’ after the original members of the parish. A large poultry building, sometimes referred to as the turkey coops, was turned into a five-room school building. Two other classrooms were crafted from a large garage. In 1953, an eighth grade was added, giving the school a 200-student enrollment. The parish sold off acreage below Sunset to help defray costs and pay for a multi-purpose building, which was the first of the long-range expansion program for St. Matthew’s School. A year later ninth grade was also added, but in 1956 the school went back to K-6. The multi-purpose building was dedicated in 1958 and the elementary school classrooms were built in 1964. During the ’60s and ’70s, additional buildings including the library, two clergy residences, and the Olympic-size swimming pool were built, keeping the integrity of the meadow and canyon intact. The massive brush fire of 1978, which started west of the 405 freeway and burned westward to Topanga, destroyed 161 hillside homes in Brentwood and the Palisades, including St. Matthew’s church. Describing the disaster in the parish newsletter, Reverend Peter Kreitier wrote: ‘As I sit on our lawn the day after, looking across the hills charred by the fire, I can only offer thanks to God that the school, the parish offices (Founders’ Hall), Briggs Hall, the rectory and our home were spared. As the fire rushed down the hill with the intensity of a burning hurricane, the final eight of us to leave were convinced that all was lost. Ashes and fire balls were dropping everywhere; the smoke was asphyxiating and the police were demanding we leave under threat of arrest.’ A striking new church building, designed by Charles Moore and Associates, with input from the congregation, was rebuilt in 1983 and was called ‘mystical, not modern’ by Newsweek magazine. Meanwhile, spared by the fire, the school continued to flourish. In 1979, seventh and eighth grade were brought back to campus, which brought the school enrollment to 325, which is the current total. The Marie Osborne Keck Building was dedicated, adding sorely needed classrooms. St. Matthew’s has continued building and refinishing classrooms, keeping with the founders’ intent that the permanent policy of the ministry would be centered on youth. ‘We’re not doing this to expand the number of students at St. Matthew’s,’ said Headmaster Les Frost, who came to St. Matthew’s in 1984 and lives in the community with his wife, Marilyn. ‘We like it the size it is.’ Rather, the emphasis is on giving students the best possible learning environment. In 1997, the science and technology building was opened as well as the Sprague Center (which is the gym and performing arts center). In 2000, the preschool was remodeled and from 2004 to last fall, a new building which houses grades 1-4 and a new library were built. The award-winning Lake-Flato architectural design for the new classrooms and library is remarkable in its simplicity. The choice of wood, cooper and smooth stucco blends perfectly into the canyon. The library, which is built against a hill, lies in the center of the campus buildings. ‘It should be in the heart of the campus,’ Frost said. The library includes a faculty lounge and lunchroom, a story-telling corner in a little amphitheater, bay windows, maple window seats and a technology room. There is a wood walkway about the balcony of the library that connects to the third and fourth grade classrooms upstairs. ‘For me the third grade classroom has the best views,’ said Frost. ‘For others it is the fourth grade because it feels like you’re in a tree house.’ The current St. Matthew’s School is an aesthetic, yet functional campus that blends into the canyon. It is not uncommon for deer to wander onto the meadow. ‘Schools are really about people who populate them,’ Frost said as he praised the caring teachers and the community who made the buildings possible. It seems that the founders would agree with his assessment that the original idea of centering on the youth has been brought to spectacular fruition.