L.A.’s Cultural Heritage Commission agreed last Wednesday that the historic service station in Santa Monica Canyon should be preserved as a city monument, against the wishes of the Marquez family members who own the land on which the station stands. While the commission’s decision was a victory for a group of canyon residents who had rallied in recent months to save the station, ‘it is far from a done deal,’ said Brian Clark, who until he was evicted recently, had been leasing the station from the family since 1995. ‘It still needs to be approved by L.A. City Council, and the community still has to find a way to buy the property,’ said Clark, who was ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the decision, after a decade of wrangling with the neighbors, the City and more recently the Marquez family to preserve the station. The property, which includes the gas station and one of the last remaining homes of the Marquez family, the original owners of the Rancho Boca de Santa Monica land grant, is currently in escrow with a neighbor, Chris Hoffmann, who apparently plans to donate the gas station to the Petersen Automotive Museum and make the 17,000-sq.-ft. lot an extension of his back yard. The asking price when the property went into escrow in September was $2.3 million. While the station is in a residential zone (R-1), there has been a conditional use permit (CUP) since 1925 for the gas station to operate in this neighborhood. In mid-November, just as escrow was expected to close on the property, the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association (SMCCA) applied to the commission to have Canyon Service, the oldest full-service gas station in Los Angeles, declared a Historic-Cultural monument. Since that time no one has been permitted to demolish, alter or move the 1922 structure, which was recently fenced in. The station’s fixtures, including the Coke machines, the neon lights, the three restored orange-and-white gas pumps and the antique street sign, are currently in a storage facility. At the commission hearing the Marquez family, in their opening remarks, complained that SMCCA’s application had caused them ‘financial hardship,’ because they have not been able to complete the sale nor re-rent the station pending the landmark status. Clark, who was leasing for $2,000 a month, made a full price offer on the property in September but lost out to Hoffmann. ‘We still want to buy the station [property] if they will sell it to us,’ Clark said. If City Council approves monument status for the station, it would ‘buy some time’ for the community to arrange a purchase of the property, which local realtor Mike Deasy feels is feasible. ‘The majority of canyon residents want to see this station in operation,’ he said at Tuesday morning’s Optimist Club meeting. While he acknowledged that there are some residents who oppose keeping the station, ‘We think it adds to the charm,’ as do several other residents who have already donated funds towards a possible purchase. SMCCA (which represents neighboring residents), already has the backing of Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, the Palisades Historical Society, the Palisades Community Council, the Society for Commercial Archeology and the Route 66 Association.

Local residents involved in a legal dispute over a Rustic Canyon home felt justice was finally served last month when the California Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in their civil suit against homeowners Mehr and Vickey Beglari and the City of Los Angeles. Now, the City of L.A. will be directed to revoke the permits issued to the Beglaris for the completed addition to their home at 909 Greentree, on the corner of Brooktree Road. The existing property is 14 feet closer to the street (Greentree) than permitted by the governing sections of the Los Angeles Municipal Code. Yet the five plaintiffs, who all live nearby, are still wondering why the City, including the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, the Planning Commission, the City Attorney’s Office and City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, didn’t respond to their complaints, beginning in 2001 to date. Neither Deputy City Attorney Michael Klekner nor Miscikowski returned phone calls to the Palisadian-Post. The plaintiffs are attorney Ronald Oster and his wife Superior Court Judge Diana Wheatley; attorney John Rosenfeld; and Superior Court Judge David Horwitz and his wife Jacki, a professor/journalist. (Jacki Horwitz is a Palisadian-Post columnist, but not an employee.) These neighbors have waged a four-year battle with the Beglaris and the City over construction of the house, which began in April 2001 when the couple started excavating the front of their 10,000-sq.-ft. lot to build an underground garage. The plaintiffs thought the Beglaris were digging too close to the curb and that the setback was not in keeping with those of nearby homes. They began contacting their Council office and Building and Safety by telephone and letters to learn how the expansion had been authorized. The Beglaris had obtained a permit in January 2001 from Building and Safety that authorized the construction of a 6,550-sq.-ft., two-story addition to their existing 2,000-sq.-ft. ranch-style house. Sometime around August 2001, when Building and Safety discovered that the Beglaris were in violation of the City’s Hillside Ordinance, which imposes special conditions on construction in an area like Rustic Canyon (regarding height restrictions, lot coverage restrictions, increased off-parking requirements, and fire and sprinkler requirements), it issued specific orders mandating that the addition be brought into compliance. The City gave the Beglaris the option of reducing the height of their house or raising the site by backfilling a driveway; they chose the latter option. A permit issued to the Beglaris in November 2001 authorized the movement of a side wall, and a permit issued in March 2002 allowed for an increase in the height of the driveway so the roofline of the addition would not exceed height limits measured from ground level. The plaintiffs then challenged the permits issued to the Beglaris in a series of administrative appeals, first to the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners (BBSC) in March 2002. Specifically, they claimed ‘1.) the height of Beglari’s proposed addition was excessive, 2.) the proposed addition would impermissibly reduce the front-yard setback because the prevailing front-yard setback had been incorrectly measured by Beglari, and 3.) the enlarged residence would impermissibly reduce the size of the required side yards,’ according to the Court of Appeal opinion filed last month. While the appeal to the BBSC was pending, the plaintiffs sued the City and the Beglaris ‘for declaratory and injunctive relief, asking the court to compel the City to revoke Beglari’s building permits and to issue a stop work order.’ The case was transferred from the Los Angeles County Superior Court to the Orange County Superior Court to avoid any conflict of interest, since two of the plaintiffs are Superior Court judges in L.A. However, the City refused to issue a preliminary injunction because the plaintiffs had not exhausted their ‘administrative remedies.’ Meanwhile, the BBSC rejected the plaintiffs’ challenges to Building and Safety’s determinations concerning construction of the home and, on August 19, 2002, Building and Safety issued a certificate of occupancy to Beglari. Despite further appeals to the Director of City Planning and the City Planning Commission, the only ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor came in October 2002 when Associate Zoning Administrator Lourdes Green, acting on behalf of the Director of City Planning, found that Building and Safety had not calculated the prevailing front-yard setback in accordance with the zoning code. The setback had been erroneously measured from the Beglaris’ next door neighbor’s detached garage to the curb instead of from the neighbor’s house to the curb, as required by law (a detached garage is not considered part of a house). According to Green, had the setback been properly calculated, the Beglari house would have had to be set back an additional 14 feet from Greentree Road. Plaintiff Rosenfeld, who grew up three doors down from what is now the Beglari residence, describes the zoning code in the Greentree Rd. area of Rustic Canyon as ‘the sole defense against overbuilding on lots. The zoning code is like a contract that everybody lives by and expects everybody else to live by.’ The Beglaris appealed to the City Planning Commission and in February 2003, a final determination rejected Lourdes Green’s decision and ruled in favor of the Beglaris on the setback issue. A month later, the plaintiffs filed an amended pleading to their lawsuit and, having exhausted their administrative remedies, got a court ruling. The September 11, 2003 ruling by Judge David C. Velasquez in Santa Ana found that ‘the city prejudicially abused its discretion in that it has not proceeded in a manner required by law. The city’s use of the ‘in-line’ theory of calculating prevailing front yard setback is not supported by any reasonable interpretation of the Los Angeles Municipal Code.’ The trial court ordered the City to revoke the three permits issued to the Beglaris. In an interview that month with the Palisadian-Post, Deputy City Attorney Klekner said he did not think the case would be resolved amicably. He was right. The City and the Beglaris appealed, and the cause was argued and submitted to the California Court of Appeal on November 17, 2004. ‘There was no consensus among the panel,’ Klekner told the Post just hours after the appeal was argued. ‘But this is a pretty quick panel.’ The three participants’judges Miriam A. Vogel, Vaino Spencer and Richard D. Aldrich’had 90 days to issue an opinion. On December 15, the initial judgment was affirmed unanimously in an opinion that read: ‘The City (joined by Beglari) contends the trial court exceeded its authority when it ordered the City to revoke the three permits issued to Belgari. The City’s argument misses the point’that (as Zoning Administrator and the trial court both found) there is no discretion involved in the application of the formula to the measurements at issue in this case.’ In an interview Monday, Bob Steinbach of the Department of Building and Safety, told the Post, ‘If a judge made a ruling, we have no choice but to go with ruling. We would have to issue orders [to the owner] to comply [with the ruling].’ The permits and certificate of occupancy originally issued to the Beglaris by Building and Safety will thereby be revoked unless the Beglaris appeal to the California Supreme Court or are able to obtain a variance. ‘I’d be very surprised if the Supreme Court has an interest in taking this case,’ said plaintiff Rosenfeld, who sold his family’s home at 848 Greentree last year. He now lives in Topanga. Rosenfeld also said that there is ‘nothing about the [Beglari] property that will warrant a variance.’ However, he admits that ‘it will not surprise me if the City makes findings and grants him a variance,’ which ‘we [the plaintiffs] will immediately challenge in court.’ The conclusion of the Court of Appeal opinion states: ‘While we agree that the proper calculations have to be made, we do not see any basis in law, fact, or fairness to allow the City or Beglari to keep the improperly issued permits in place so that they can become the foundation for the decisions that will thereafer have to be made…Under these circumstances, there is only one more thing to be said’that it is time for the City to amend the relevant portions of the Municipal Code.’ Asked if the opinion is groundbreaking in its affirmation of the initial judgment against the City of Los Angeles, Rosenfeld said, ‘If it’s making history, it’s a sad thing.’ Then, speaking for the plaintiffs, he added, ‘We were gratified. It pays to take into account the consideration that your neighbors raise.’ Despite repeated attempts to contact the Beglaris, they could not be reached for comment.

Some time in July, Alexandra and Jordan Papadopolous discovered a paper stork hanging above the sink in the kitchen with a sign attached: ‘Guess what?’ Neither of them, who are 18 and 17 years old respectively, got it. Their parents Terri Rock, 46, and Harry Papadopolous, 47, were going to have a baby. ‘What are you thinking?’ Alexandra recalls asking her parents, who were, needless to say, just as surprised. Baby Melanie Verree Papadoupolous was born at 12:09 a.m. on January 8 and is winner of the Palisadian-Post’s First Baby of the Year contest in 2005. Her arrival will be celebrated by local merchants with gift certificates, baby gear and pampering for her parents. The fact that Melanie was not planned fits right into the Rock/Papadopolous philosophy. ‘I don’t plan things; it’s too scary if you do,’ says Terri, pointing to the couple’s elopement and joyful surprise of their first two children, who now attend Palisades High. Terri and Harry met in Nicaragua in 1981 as volunteer healthcare workers with the Christian Medical Society, who had been invited by the new Sandinista government. Harry went on to work as a Canadian Peace Corps volunteer, teaching science in a small village in Nigeria, while Terri completed medical school. They eloped to Palm Springs in 1985. While surprised at first and certainly out of practice as parents of a newborn, Terri and Harry have the benefit of experience with babies, both professionally and personally. Terri, ‘Dr. Rock’ to many Palisades families, has operated her solo family medicine practice in Santa Monica since 1990, the same year (Continued on Page 5) she and her husband moved to the Palisades. While she spends her days responding to the needs of various families, from kids to seniors’her oldest patient is 104’Harry manages the office, and for many years took care of the kids and the house. ‘One of the benefits of my practice and my patients is that they seem very accepting of the fact that Melanie is going to be in the office,’ says Terri, recalling that her older kids went on hospital rounds with her and visited patients in nursing homes. ‘In fact, when we went to St. John’s to deliver the new baby, some of the nurses remembered Alexandra and Jordan.’ For all her knowledge and experience with babies, Terri was in total denial about the baby from beginning to end, and elected to forego the natural childbirth route. As it turned out, Melanie proved to be a tough delivery and put her mama through a two-day labor. ‘After 39 weeks, we decided that it was time and induced her. She was moving a little less, and her heart rate was going down with each contraction,’ says Terri, who was well aware of the risks with an ‘old’ placenta. When the doctor decided to deliver the baby by Caesarean, the whole family was present to observe the birth. Melanie joins the Rock/Papadopolous clan as the youngest of the 26 cousins (Alexandra is the oldest). Terri, raised in Texas in a doctor’s family, is the oldest child of five girls. Harry, whose given name is Aristides, but changed it to Harry after his godfather in hopes that he would be able to assimilate more easily in his Greek family’s adopted country, Canada, is one of seven children. So the parents know about family and like it. ‘Apart from being tired, we now know how to do this,’ Terri says. ‘It’s fun, I do enjoy seeing them grow and develop and I love going to the kids’ activities. And, there’s no doubt about it, it will keep me young.’ Harry has been an active parent volunteer at the local schools, the YMCA and the Recreation Center. Although Terri admits that she was a bad patient, having persuaded the obstetrician to let her out of St. John’s a couple of days early, she appreciates the advances in technology that have made childbirth safer and more hospitable. The entire family responds in chorus about the new obstetrics wing at St. John’s, where every labor and delivery room is private and equipped with a comfortable bed for the father, a labor and delivery bed, prep area and best of all, according to Alexandra, a plasma TV, thanks to Governor Schwarzenegger. Apparently, the governor paid for the TVs, along with donating the new neonatal wing at the hospital in honor of his wife, Maria. While it looks as if Alexandra might trade her babysitting job with the next-door-neighbors for her own little sister, Jordan is still wondering how something so cute and little could have such a loud cry.