Six and a half years ago, Palisadian Jim Wadsworth said he felt called by God to spearhead a movement to install an athletic playing field at Calvary Christian School. Since then, his faith was tested numerous times, yet he never stopped believing. Last Thursday morning his prayers were answered. Calvary Christian held a dedication ceremony to inaugurate its $2.5 million synthetic turf field (located at 701 Palisades Drive at the foot of the Highlands), which will serve not only the parish school but the entire Palisades community. “I’m so excited to reach this milestone,” Wadsworth, who owns a real estate development and asset management firm in Santa Monica, said in a speech before the school’s students and faculty. “This has been a collective effort of so many people and we wouldn’t be here today without their contributions.” After opening remarks by Head of School Teresa Roberson, Wadsworth thanked Community Council member Kurt Toppel, AYSO Region 69 Commissioner Debbie Held, local attorney Marty Trupiano and Amgen construction engineer Dave Callahan, among others, for their contributions to his effort. “Kurt saw the merits of the field early on and staunchly supported us at council meetings, Debbie wrote letters of support and attended hearings downtown, Marty volunteered countless hours reviewing and redrafting legal documents required for city and state approvals, and Dave offered excellent advice throughout the design and construction process.” Wadsworth, a 25-year parishioner at Calvary Church, also thanked land-use attorney Mark Allen, Coastal Commission member Susan McCabe, civil engineers Lloyd Poindexter and Pat Montelana and construction management team members Frank Gamwell (principal), Gavin Miller (vice president), Ed Lloyd (senior project manager), Marc Dublin (business development) and superintendents Peter Gregory and Will Foraker. On hand to celebrate with Wadsworth were his wife Kay, assistant head at Calvary School, and two of their three kids, Jill, 29, and Jordan, 23. Then the school mascot, Casey Cougar, led a cheer and a flock of white doves was released. Letters from U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, Senator Barbara Boxer and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa were presented in recognition of Wadsworth’s commitment to the project. “There was a point when the field proposal seemed destined to be defeated,” Wadsworth continued. “It was then that two people stepped forward from the city attorney’s office, having the foresight to see the mutual benefits this field would have. These two women, Cecilia Estolano and Cynthia McClain Hill, worked tirelessly with me to arrive at a compromise solution for public usage.” Finally, Wadsworth thanked City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski and her staff, chief deputy Lisa Gritzner, district director Debbie Dyner-Harris, field deputy Monique Ford and former deputy Kristen Montet. Public usage of the new field will consist of 18 Saturdays a year as well as six discretionary days to be determined by Palisades Recreation Center Director Cheryl Gray, who was also present. Mondays through Thursdays, the field will be used for Calvary’s after-school sports programs-flag football and cross country in the fall, soccer in the winter and track in the spring. “There’s such a need for the field and it’s such a beautiful facility, we want others to use it too,” said Marti Willens, Calvary’s middle school director. “It’ll be used every day for recess and P.E. The 7th- and 8th-graders play flag football and soccer in the Delphic League and the 5th- and 6th-graders play in the Coastal Canyon League. We’ll also play intramurals up here at lunch. There are so many great uses for the field.” Miscikowski attended the ceremony along with Jenny Toder (representing Assemblymember Fran Pavley), Viet Tran (representing Mayor James Hahn) and Ben Saltsman (representing Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky). She stepped to the podium after Wadsworth and praised him for his perseverance: “I can’t say enough about this man. In 1972, when I started to work on this canyon and this land, we had a big battle and we ultimately settled on a land-use plan for Santa Ynez Canyon. We agreed that we would carve out an Institutional Site for a church and school (we didn’t know who would own it) and we carved out an open space behind the school. “Then in 1997, Jim came up with his concept. He said ‘I think of playing fields as open space too, and we should make it for the students and children of the Palisades, too.’ He made that promise-and kept it. He had a shared vision for all the children-it really was his vision to push the envelope and build something for the children of the future.” PCM, the management firm that served as general contractor for the project, began work April 12, just over two months after the California Coastal Commission issued the long-sought permit. The project consisted of excavating 10,000 yards of dirt at the north end of the site, building retaining walls along the back against the hillside and installing synthetic turf measuring 90 yards long by 40 yards wide and covering 32,400 square feet. White and yellow lines are marked into the turf, which is called SmartGrass, and the school’s Cougar logo is painted at midfield. “This is truly a celebration day for Jim Wadsworth,” Roberson said. “When he began this process in July 1997, some of our students were not even born yet. Over six years, he sacrificed literally thousands of hours of personal time. Jim knew the children at Calvary and in the Palisades needed more athletic space and we thank him for his commitment.” One of the beneficiaries of the field will be Held and her local AYSO program. “It’s awesome,” she told Wadsworth afterwards. “You had a vision. I’m so glad you hung in there and I know the hoops you had to go through.” Held said AYSO will lease the field for $12 an hour, and its younger age groups will play games there 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays from August to November. The YMCA will also have practices and games there starting in April. “I was elected in July 1997,” Miscikowski said in her speech. “In August I had my first meeting with Jim. He already had a plan in mind. That shows his commitment. He set a goal, engaged other allies like Community Council and AYSO, and the result here is that everybody’s a winner.” Highlands resident and Calvary student Lauren Kohli was as excited as the adults: “I play intramural soccer at lunch. We play two 10-minute halves, seven or eight girls on a team. It’s exciting to be on the new field. It’s real cushioning, it definitely feels like real grass.” The California Coastal Commission approved Wadsworth’s proposal by a 7-1 vote in December 2001 but findings of fact procedures and general backlog delayed the issuing of the permit for 14 months. “I’ve seen it through all the different phases, from the time it was dirt,” said Dallas Price-VanBreda, whose Price Family Foundation earlier donated $250,000 to the new gym campaign at the Palisades Recreation Center. “We were one of the initial donors and it’s very exciting to see the project come to fruition. We got involved financially because five of my grandkids went through the school. If we had given in to the ‘nos,’ this would have never happened so our thanks to Jim for hanging in there. He knew it was the right thing to do.”

Residents of the Via de las Olas neighborhood are outraged by the proposed off-leash dog park proposed for the infamous “Oxy site” along Pacific Coast Highway, just west of Potrero Canyon-and directly below the Via bluffs. “While we are not against the idea of a dog park, we are adamantly against the idea of using the Oxy site, which we believe is reckless and irresponsible,” said Thomas and Elisabeth Giovine of BRAD (Bluff Residents Against Danger) in a letter to Norm Kulla, acting chair of PaliDog, the dog park search committee. “We urge you to seek an alternate site that is not so close to a residential neighborhood, such as Temescal Canyon. We have never understood why dogs are not allowed [there] anyway,” the Giovines wrote. “Please understand, before PaliDog expends resources on studies using the Oxy site, we want to be very clear: my wife and I will fight this movement with every fiber of our beings.” Kulla (and the Palisadian-Post) received similar protest letters from other Via bluffs neighbors who fear that a dog park on the flat, 2-acre site (once proposed for oil drilling) would entice droves of dog owners to park along Via de las Olas-between Mt. Holyoke and Friends-and hike 10 minutes or so down an unimproved path to the dog park. PaliDog’s goal is to build a parking lot adjacent to a fenced-in park (accessed from PCH) and discourage people from using the hillside trail. Eventually, the dog park would also be accessible to people hiking a one-mile fire road from the Palisades Recreation Center down through a “landscaped” Potrero Canyon. BRAD letter writers requested a meeting with PaliDog, and Kulla encouraged them to make a presentation to his committee on Monday, February 9 at 6:30 in Mort’s Oak Room. “PaliDog is attempting to proceed on a consensus basis,” Kulla said. “I believe we should make the Oxy site and concerns of the residents of Via de las Olas a principle focus of our next meeting. Monique Ford of Cindy Miscikowski’s office is also involved in this process.” Kulla said his committee has focused on the Oxy site “after studying and rejecting more than a half-dozen other possible locations” in the Palisades. “Land ownership is complex” along PCH at Potrero Canyon, he said, and “Monique has indicated that a land and/or easement swap is pending between Caltrans and the City. We anticipate a fluid and extended process to attain our goal.” In a two page e-mail to Via de las Olas neighborhood friends last week, Tom and Elisabeth Giovine argued that the proposed dog park would “jeopardize the bluff’s stability, invite crime, risk fire danger, risk our children’s safety, slow traffic and endanger the environment.” More specifically, they objected that: Since the Via de las Olas bluff is geologically unstable, the City deemed the street Withdrawn from Public Use “because it is worried about vehicle weight on the bluff. A dog park might cause users (not just from the Palisades) to park on Olas and risk the bluff’s stability.” In addition, there’s concern about “bluff erosion from increased human and canine foot traffic” down to the dog park. A dog park “would increase the likelihood of a fire that would threaten homes in the Palisades bluffs and in the Huntington.” Crime will increase because “the dog park will attract visitors from all over Los Angeles and Ventura counties-not just Palisades residents. The dog park will invite wayward and unseemly people to roam the bluff streets from PCH to the Village and throughout the Huntington.” “Children playing at the Palisades Recreation Center will be at risk from dog park users, who can easily walk directly up the canyon from PCH.” In addition, “unleashed dogs, so dangerously close to a densely populated residential neighborhood, will create serious risk to our children playing in their yards as well as around the bluff.” Environmental dangers will include the prospect that “dog urine and fecal matter will run off into the ocean, into an area that already has dubious water cleanliness,” and “the nightly on-shore winds will disperse remnants of dog feces throughout the bluff streets and the Huntington-posing a threat to human health.” * “We all know that PCH can be very slow, particularly during summer beach days. A dog park [at the foot of Potrero Canyon] will further exacerbate traffic issues as dog park users will be darting in and out of traffic.” In a letter to Councilwoman Miscikowski, Via de las Olas resident Bill Moran said he owned a golden retriever and he would enjoy taking his dog to a dog park-but not at the Oxy site. He argued that “having a dog park adjacent to PCH, where dogs may get loose (inadvertently) and be running around on PCH will be a dangerous situation.” In addition, since “innumerable people” will access the site from Via de las Olas, “the impact on the neighborhood could be enormous. A dog park could draw from a population of 30,000-50,000. Imagine the number of dogs, cars, and non-neighborhood people who will be using this facility.” In summary, Moran charged, building a dog park at the Oxy site “would be a complete disaster” and “ranks right up there with putting in a Minimum Security Prison and telling people to not worry because they’re non-violent people.”

Amidst all the noise of national election primaries, three citizens have quietly begun the process of running for Council District 11 in March 2005, when two-term Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski will be termed out. This will be the first election in the district since it became a coastal district exclusively, as a result of last year’s redistricting, and candidates are already staking out their territory on the issues. Flora Gil Krisiloff, a Brentwood resident since 1985, is running on her record as a community advocate. “When I moved to Brentwood from Mar Vista 19 years ago, I immediately got involved in preserving the Brentwood Country Mart on the corner of 26th and San Vicente,” Krisiloff told the Palisadian-Post. “Then Marvin Braude appointed me to the San Vicente Design Review Board, where I continue to serve.” In more recent times, Krisiloff co-founded and remains the only chairman of the Brentwood Community Council, which was established six years ago. She has also served as vice president of the West L.A. Planning Commission for two years and is currently the president. While not obligated to step down from her position on the commission, she will do so voluntarily “in order to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest.” “Because the West L. A. Planning Commission encompasses all of Council District 11, I have become familiar with planning issues throughout the entire district, which runs from the 405 freeway to the east, the ocean to the west, Pacific Palisades to the north and Westchester to the south.” Krisiloff has assembled a campaign team that includes Rich Taylor, who ran both of Cindy Miscikowski’s campaigns, Charley Dobbs to raise money and Mary Ellen Padilla as treasurer. She expects to begin her fundraising after March 8, when matching funds become available. Krisiloff, 52, earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from UCLA, where she taught in the nursing school. She also holds an MBA from UCLA. She and her husband, Milton, who is a urologist with a Santa Monica practice, have three sons. Bill Rosendahl, who has 22 years experience in cable television specializing in public affairs programs, most recently on Adelphia, is hoping to build consensus on the City Council. Since 1987, he has produced 3,000 shows on state and local issues. In addition, he has given voice to all candidates, big and small, who have run for local and statewide office and offered a forum to debate state and municipal propositions. “I think of myself as being accessible and open, and believe if we all sit at the table we can come up with solutions,” he said. A Mar Vista resident, Rosendahl plans to use the next six months to raise money and familiarize himself with specific issues. He will hold his first fundraiser on March 8. He has hired a team of consultants including Parke Skelton to run the campaign, Brian and Pat Bradford to raise money and Steve Kauffman to “keep my books straight.” A native of New Jersey, Rosendahl, who is single, has spent his career in and out of politics, working for a number of Democratic candidates, including Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 bid for president, which brought him to Los Angeles for the first time on that fateful evening. Rosendahl, who turns 60 in 2005, thinks of himself as a citizen politician, whose “experience, awareness and maturity” will serve him well. Los Angeles native Sheila Bernard’s foray into politics was prompted by her own personal commitment to affordable housing. A resident of Lincoln Place Apartments since 1988, Bernard, 54, has led the fight to protect and preserve the 800 units of housing in the middle of Venice. She is the single mother of three grown children. “This major activity got me interested in politics as I began to see that the biggest problems in Los Angeles include affordable housing, transportation and, of course water,” Bernard told the Post. A graduate of UCLA, where she studied public service, Bernard has been teaching adults and at-risk youth in the Division of Adult and Career Education of LAUSD since 1981. “During these years I have met several thousand at-risk youth of high school age and helped many of them to prepare for the GED and earn their high school diploma,” she says. “I have concluded that schools need more support and participation from government and from local communities if schools are to play all the roles that are expected of them in the lives of students and their families.” Bernard not only serves as president of the Lincoln Place Tenants Association, but also was co-founder and current president of the Grass Roots Venice Neighborhood Council, which was certified two years ago. She says that she expects to run a “nontraditional” campaign. “The neighborhood council and tenants are my work in the community. The campaign has to accommodate my work in the community, not the other way around.”

Imagine a store in the Palisades dedicated to the home chef, a place for children and adults that would offer cooking classes, feature celebrity chefs and sell quality kitchen ware. “I thought the idea was great,” said Palisadian Richard Klein, a CPA consultant who has had many corporate clients. “I was surprised there wasn’t already a store like that in the village. I wondered why.” The concept first came to Klein, himself a home chef, last Memorial Day weekend when he was celebrating his eighth wedding anniversary with his wife Barbara and their two young children, Jacquelyn, 6, and Joseph, 2. Not sure if he had come up with the greatest kitchen idea since sliced bread, he spent a month trying to talk himself out of the possibilities. The demographics of the area, as well as some informal polling he did with his wife, convinced him otherwise. “This area is all about families,” Klein, who lives in the Marquez area, told the Palisadian-Post this week. “I believe the village is ready for this, a place where children can come and learn to cook, along with their parents. This is not a professional trade school. It is designed for the community to enjoy. Just look at the success of cooking shows in the last 10 years. Even my young son knows who Emeril is!” After looking at several possible village locations, including the former Kids’ Universe on Sunset (which ended up being leased to Jiva Yoga Studio) and the former Emerson-LeMay Cleaners site on Swarthmore, Klein settled on a storefront on Via de la Paz. And just last week he received tentative approval of his plans from the Palisades Design Review Board. “It’s been a whirlwind of planning and raising funds,” said Klein, who is not exactly sure when his multi-use kitchen store will open. His priority now is to renovate the former site of Sheila May Permanent Makeup Studio at 872 Via de la Paz. Plans call for a complete overhaul of the 1,650-sq.-ft. space, to be called Chefmakers. Klein is in the process of registering the trademark. “Chefmakers is a new retailing concept offering a wide variety of what I call edu-tainment activities,” Klein explained in his presentation to the DRB. “Products and services are oriented to the home chef, both adults and children, and is designed to meet the family-oriented needs of the Palisades community.” Exterior improvements include installing floor-to-ceiling windows, new front doors and awnings, and re-stuccoing the facade. A parapet wall will be built on the roof to give the signage, which is red, some depth. Although the Chefmakers store represents only two-thirds of the building frontage (the adjacent space, at 874, is occupied by Carpets West), the landlord is allowing an upgrading of the entire building, which will provide a “new unified look.” “I am very pleased with what they have proposed, and particularly with the quality of the project,” said Don Hecker, who owns the building. The DRB felt the same way. “I think it’s a tremendous improvement over what exists now,” said member Murray Levy. “I agree,” said chairman Rick Mills. While no formal vote was taken (as there was not a quorum at the meeting) the DRB gave conditional approval to the project. Plans also call for new signage for Carpets West as well as the Chefmakers logo (a chef’s cap) to be placed on the side of the existing tower so it is visible from Sunset. Colors for the design range from light to dark gray. Awnings will be soft green and act as a sun shield. Exterior concrete planters will be filled with seasonal flowers. “My intention was to simplify the building,” said architect Stanley Felderman, who has been involved in the design of several restaurants (Il Forno, La Vecchia Cucina) as well as the design of the MTV headquarters in Santa Monica. He and Klein met at a Daddy and Me class at the Village Arts and Enrichment Center on Sunset. They became friends, and Felderman is now an investor in the project. “Richard is so compelling, so passionate about this idea that I could not help but become involved,” said Felderman, who lives in the El Medio bluffs area with his wife Nancy Keating and their 3-year-old twin daughters, Kate and Sara. “This project is all about bringing families together, and giving something back to this wonderful community we live in.” Klein, 48, has also leased two smaller storefronts from Hecker to use as office space and storage. Both are located next to Amazing Music, behind the Via de la Paz location. He is pleased that several of the investors in the project, as well as some of his advisors, are Palisadians. “We hope to create a renewed interest in Via de la Paz with this project,” said Klein, who taught himself how to cook when he went off to study business at USC. He wrote about his first disastrous attempt for the student newspaper, the Daily Trojan. “My mother sent me off with a pot and some Hamburger Helper. I soon found out that the pot wasn’t big enough for what I was making!” So what does the home chef cook when he has guests? “Homemade fettuccine with Roquefort cheese sauce, paired with a French Sauterne,” Klein said. Possibility a recipe for a Chefmakers food demonstration? “Maybe.” To follow the progress of Chefmakers, go to: www. chefmakers. com.