Bill Rosendahl, previously best known as host of a Westside public affairs show on cable television, defeated Flora Gil Krisiloff in the L.A. City Council District 11 runoff election on Tuesday. He will succeed two-term Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski on July l. Rosendahl, who turned 60 last Sunday, received 26,613 votes (56.6 percent) to Krisiloff?s 20,439 votes (43.4 percent), with 99.41 percent of the ballots counted. His campaign manager, Mike Bonin, said that Rosendahl carried 136 of the 170 precincts in a district that stretches from Pacific Palisades and Brentwood in the north, east to the 405 freeway, and south to Westchester. Endorsed by nine members of the City Council and a wide range of community leaders and organizations in the district (including the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club), Rosendahl had to overcome Krisiloff?s three key endorsements: Miscikowski, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and the Los Angeles Times. He gained a pivotal boost after the March primary when he was endorsed by the third candidate, attorney Angela Reddock, after she was eliminated from the race. Reddock is a Westchester resident and her support helped Rosendahl, a Mar Vista resident, build on his strength in the more populous southern part of the district. ?I truly believe this is the beginning of a new day,? Rosendahl told the Palisadian-Post early Wednesday morning as he juggled congratulatory calls on three lines at his Mar Vista office. ?My large margin of victory is clearly a mandate and an affirmation of what I stand for and the issues I believe in. I?m very grateful and humbled by the support.? Reiterating the main themes of his campaign, Rosendahl said: ?One thing I want to do is give people a more positive sense about politicians and how a democracy can work. I want to fight the sense of powerless, alienation and cynicism I encountered across the district, and I?ll do it by raising the level of citizen involvement as we work to solve our problems with traffic, congestion, development and the environment.? In Pacific Palisades, for example, Rosendahl said he wants to get engaged in the rent-hike controversy that has threatened the small-town business atmosphere along the 1000 block of Swarthmore, between Sunset and Monument. ?I want to sit down with the owners [Palisades Partners] and work with them on how we can resolve this situation, so that the character of the village?and the joy that Swarthmore brings to community members?is maintained.? On Election Day, Rosendahl ate his good-luck bowl of matzo ball soup at Mort?s Deli on Swarthmore, a tradition he began in the March primary, and he vowed to hold community forums in the adjacent Oak Room. Rosendahl?s election-night party was held at a home in Venice, where he waited until 98 percent of the vote was announced before declaring victory, around 1:30 a.m. ?I was waiting for a call from Flora that never came,? Rosendahl said, ?but I want to emphasize that I plan to spend time reaching out to those people who were involved with my opponent. I think we should have reconciliation and healing as we move forward.? Rosendahl, who is the first openly gay person to be elected to the L.A. City Council, said he respected what this means in terms of politics and public acceptance, ?but [the label] certainly doesn?t go deep enough into who I am as an individual.? Krisiloff, who met with her supporters at the Luxe Hotel in Brentwood on Tuesday evening, told Post Senior Editor Libby Motika that the high point of the election campaign was ?making it into the runoff, especially when you look at where I began. I wasn?t supposed to get this far.? ?I know the district really well after this campaign,? said the longtime Westside activist, ?and regardless of the outcome, I understand how important it is to be engaged.? But before reimmersing herself, ?I?m going to take some time off. I have spent the last 15 months campaigning, putting my life on hold.? She continued, ?I will continue to be active and involved. I am still the president of the Brentwood Community Council, and will serve on the year-long VA property commission. I am 53 years old, have two children who are grown, and I am definitely at a place in my life where I am looking to put more of myself into either public service or a job.? In an interview Wednesday morning, Rosendahl?s campaign manager, Mike Bonin, analyzed the election results. ?We had a wonderful, charismatic, open candidate who genuinely appreciated reaching out to everybody in the community, regardless of party affiliation or perspective [ e.g., conservative Republican politician Bill Simon]. We built a phenominal, truly grassroots movement that brought people together in an enormous coalition that included every neighborhood in the district and harnessed the energy of the environmental community, organized labor and average citizens who were fed up with traffic gridlock and a government that doesn?t bring them into the tent. ?I also think people didn?t like the tenor of the campaign that was raised against Bill,? Bonin said, ?and I think the results are an affirmation of positive politics.?

Renaissance Academy has leased a new school site in West L.A. Starting this fall, students will attend classes in the 15,000-sq.-ft. space at 1901 Bundy, just north of Olympic and across from Bally’s Fitness Center. ‘The space is a former studio with arched beamed ceilings and an abundance of parking,’ said Scott Adler, Renaissance board member and parent. ‘It will probably house RA for about two to three years, at which time we hope to have established a permanent facility either by way of purchase or agreement with LAUSD for space on one of its properties.’ The charter high school had hoped to secure a space on a Los Angeles Unified School District campus under Proposition 39, which requires public school districts to provide charter schools with reasonably equivalent facilities. Renaissance filed a lawsuit against LAUSD last June when the District refused its request for a space. Now, the District has denied the school’s request for mediation, according to Adler, who said: ‘We will ask the lower court to rehear the case or appeal same.’ Meanwhile, Renaissance classes are scheduled to end June 24, with ‘slight modifications for students participating in summer programs,’ according to Paul McGlothlin, principal and executive director. Seniors will graduate June 17. The new school site has ‘substantially more space than we have right now,’ McGlothlin told the Palisadian-Post last Thursday. ‘Everything’s on one level and we’ll have a nice courtyard.’ The tenants who occupy the other half of the Bundy building use it to store furniture, McGlothlin said. ‘We probably won’t get a lot of complaints from the furniture.’ Renaissance’s opening last September in Pacific Palisades was a tumultuous transition for school and community. The landlord of the Alma Real building terminated the school’s lease effective June 2005 after only three days of school, and Renaissance filed suit against Village Real Estate (owner of the building) in an attempt to gain more use of its renovated 13,600-sq.-ft. space. In light of the school’s harsh beginnings, the Post asked McGlothlin what he will do differently this time. ‘We’re going to give ourselves more breathing room as far as time frames go.’ By this, he means the time it takes to prepare the facility for students. Adler, who is also the school’s contractor, said that the ‘build-out,’ or work that needs to be done on the new site, is ‘not going to be that big of a deal’ compared to the extensive job they did on the Alma Real space. ‘The [new] building is zoned for a school, subject to getting a conditional use permit,’ Adler said. ‘There are no residential neighbors we impact and there’s plenty of parking.’ Renaissance currently has 14 full-time teachers and plans to add about six more. The school hopes to slightly increase its enrollment to 350 to 400 students in grades 9 through 12 this fall. ‘The interesting part about this whole adventure is that I’ve had people coming up to me all the time’tenants in the [Alma Real] building and the community’saying ‘I hate to see you go,” McGlothlin said. ‘I know the local vendors are going to miss us, or at least anyone in the Palisades who sells a reasonably priced lunch. It’s a bittersweet time. I think there was an opportunity lost here, and not for us.’ Renaissance Academy is holding two upcoming town hall meetings for prospective parents and students. The first one will be next Thursday, May 26, at 7 p.m. in the school’s terrace-level gallery at 881 Alma Real, and the second one will be held June 7, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Palisades Branch Library, 861 Alma Real.

Last September 27, Los Angeles Department of Transportation engineer Emilie Baradi met with concerned Pacific Palisades residents about the proposed preferential parking district. Seeking feedback from the community, Baradi told the 100-plus residents who attended the public hearing, ‘In the next 30 days we will still be waiting to hear from you.’ Now, it’s been more than six months since that meeting, and Palisades residents are still waiting to hear whether LADOT has recommended the controversial proposal to implement preferential parking district 50. Many of these residents had applied for preferential parking because their on-street parking had diminished as a result of spillover from the Palisades business district. Others worried about the spillover effect of the proposed six-block district onto their own streets. PPD 50 is ‘stalled in our backlog right now,’ Alan Willis, principal transportation engineer with LADOT, told the Palisadian-Post Monday. ‘My total staff consists of one person [and] this committee has been totally decimated.’ He explained that one employee resigned, another is on maternity leave and yet another has been absent because of longterm illness; in addition, there’s a ‘hiring freeze.’ ‘We’re struggling to try to finish up what projects we had before PPD 50,’ said Willis, who has ‘no idea’ when they will have a recommendation. ‘We’re trying to keep everything moving with what limited resources we have.’ Willis chaired the public hearing last September, during which he presented a brief history of how PPD 50 came about (several local residents petitioned for it), an explanation of current parking restrictions (which are generally limited to two hours) and the results of the traffic survey that was done. At that time, the Post reported that LADOT had technically approved the proposed district (after conducting the parking survey and determining that the district meets the City’s program criteria). However, the department needed feedback from the community before approving the establishment of the district. Since the hearing, Willis’s crew has collected additional data from streets adjacent to those included in the original proposed district as well as from the Palisades Recreation Center. The next step is ‘to summarize that information and the public hearing comments,’ Willis said. ‘We take all of that information and distill it into a recommendation.’ If the LADOT does recommend the district, the proposal will be forwarded to the transportation committee for approval. If the transportation committee approves the proposal, it will then go before the L.A. City Council.

The body of a hiker who died when he fell about 200 feet from a steep cliff to a ravine and struck his head, was discovered Monday morning and airlifted from the Santa Ynez area of Topanga State Park. Dallas Mussell, 19, a Woodland Hills resident, had been separated from a group of friends, two men and one women, whom he had started out with, according to police. The group of four parked their car in the Palisades Highlands, near the Santa Ynez trailhead, and set out for a hike around 5 p.m. on Sunday. They were hiking near the Santa Ynez Canyon waterfall gorge, when Mussell separated from the group. The other three went off the authorized trail, according to Supervising Ranger Stephen Bylin, to an area near the waterfall where people put up ropes to help them get up. ‘It’s a rough, rugged area,’ said Bylin. Mussell had separately made his way up to an area of steep cliffs overlooking the canyon. When the other three returned to the car around 8 p.m. and found he was missing, they notified Bel-Air Patrol, who called in the rangers. Park rangers and the County Sheriff’s mountain rescue team conducted a search using ground crews and helicopters. Mussell’s body was found at 9:30 a.m. Monday. ‘It appeared that he died immediately,’ said Captain Bill Ernst of Station 23, who was on call during the search. The death is being investigated as an accident, said Detective Ron Phillips of LAPD. ‘Part of the problem is that they separated, which is a common mistake people make when they hike,’ said Ranger Bylin. ‘People have to remember, they need to be prepared when they go into a natural area.’

Until recently, most Pacific Palisades residents didn’t know what ‘bandit barriers’ were. But after suffering four robberies in the span of two months, the Palisades community is speaking up and requesting heightened security at its banks. On April 29, Community Council vice-chairman Kurt Toppel sent a letter on behalf of the council to Bank of America corporate offices, asking that they ‘consider additional security measures such as the installation of ‘bandit barriers’ as a signal to our community that Bank of America cares and does what it can to enhance the well-being of customers and citizens at large.’ Bandit barriers are the bulletproof glass barriers on teller windows. The Palisades Bank of America branch on Sunset was robbed twice in March. One of these incidents involved a suspect who attached what he claimed was an explosive device to a female teller, and collected money from several tellers before fleeing the scene. The council decided to address bank safety following an LAPD Senior Lead Officer Summit in Brentwood in early April. Five council members and other concerned citizens attended this summit and were given updates on crime statistics, then asked to identify key problem areas. Toppel led the bank robbery action committee, which consisted of Senior Lead Officer Chris Ragsdale and 11 Palisades residents. Ragsdale told them that even though the Palisades had already suffered four commercial robberies this year, its overall crime was down 10 percent this year, after a 20-percent decline in 2004. Ragsdale said that the LAPD has suggested that Palisades banks install ‘bandit barriers’ to prevent further robberies, but that ‘some banks are resistant because the community is not receptive…it makes the bank look bad or appear more dangerous.’ The Community Council discussed this issue at its April 28 meeting and voted to bring the community’s concerns to Bank of America, as a start. ‘Based on substantial background information, the key conclusion of our group was that security in banks should be increased in order to deter would-be criminals and to reduce crime,’ Toppel wrote in his letter. ”Bandit Barriers’ were considered by LAPD to be the most effective devices.’ A copy of the letter was also sent to Ashley Gatlin, the new branch manager at the Bank of America. Tom Applebee of B of A’s corporate security office told the Palisadian-Post this week, ‘We have an armed security officer in front of the [Palisades] banking center now and we have also converted the rear door into an emergency exit only, which means that people cannot enter through that door; they can only exit that door during cases of emergency such as fire or earthquake. ‘That’s probably the extent that we’re going to go to at this particular time for security measures, not to say that a ‘bandit barrier’ is not a possibility down the road, but it’s just not on the table right at the moment.’ Applebee added that he had not seen a copy of Toppel’s letter. Meanwhile, the Palisades branch of Citibank on Sunset is planning to install ‘bandit barriers,’ according to manager Patrick Mautner. He said last Thursday that the bank was recently measured for bulletproof glass barriers, though he was not certain when they would be installed. ‘Several customers have made comments in favor of them,’ Mautner said. He added that the branch was first measured for ‘bandit barriers’ last year, following ‘a couple of incidents [of crime]’ at the bank. However, the bank opted not to install the barriers at that time. Following a ‘demand note’ robbery April 4, the Palisades Citibank reconsidered. The incident, in which an armed suspect approached a teller and demanded money, came just 10 days after the second Bank of America robbery and five days after an armed robbery at Mort’s Deli.