Gabriel Rivas: The Strength of One Gentle Man

Gabriel Rivas is a gentle man and most certainly a gentleman, in my book and in the books of hundreds of others. Gabriel is one of the best R1 petition signature gatherers the R1 group could possible have.

Many, and I mean many of you and hundreds upon hundreds of folks have witnessed this very polite and thoughtful man gather signatures at the many sites around OUR community the petition gathering table has been set up. Mr. Rivas has donated many weekends helping the R1 group gather petition signatures to keep Ponte Vista with its current zoning.

One of the things I admire about Gabriel is that he also is continuing to learn about the proposed development and how the City of Los Angeles and its officials deal with development.

It was Mr. Rivas who alerted all of us to a Web site calling for the recall of Councilman Jack Weiss due to Mr. Weiss' involvement with so many developments and developers on the west side of Los Angeles. Gabriel gave us the address of the recall Web site as: http://www.recalljackweiss.com/.

Gabriel has now found for all of us, another site with a video on Youtube dealing with Mr. Weiss, development and traffic issues on the west side, particularly in Century City.

Please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNc0D84UHkQ and take a look at that news report.

Having worked for so many years in the area of town that the video was concerned with, I have particular knowledge of the roads I recognize on the video. Motor Drive is shown numerous times and the portion that goes through residential neighborhoods is and has been in great trouble for many years.

But getting back to Gabriel, he not only shows up just about every single weekend to gather petition signatures at the various sites, he also is the organizer of the weekends where signatures are collected. I think Gabriel is proud of his service as a steering committee member, (did you get that, Tom?) and everyone connected with R Neighborhoods Are 1 is fortunate for having Gabriel doing the many jobs he does for that group, OUR community and for the future of his family, and yours, too.

We live in a community that have a large number of truly great men, women, students, and children. So many of these folks are left to do their great works for all of us without seeking or needing any acknowledge from any of us.

I wish there would be a foundation set up to recognize people like Mr. Gabriel Rivas. Of course and quite naturally it would probably hand out the John Olguin award of service, because there is no greater person in OUR community, as far as myself and many thousands of others that know John, think he is the best and to be anything like John, as Gabriel surely is, is something to be honored. Nobody in my lifetime can truly approach the service, kindness, and wonderfulness that is John Olguin, but Gabriel Rivas is one of the many souls who follows in John's footsteps and works for OUR community as John Olguin still does.

To be more like John is something Gabriel Rivas doesn't realize he is doing, and that is the way most folks who might be nominated for that award, are. Humble, caring, thoughtful, considerate, intelligent, loving, and trying his best for OUR community makes Mr. Gabriel Rivas more like John than most folks are, in my opinion, and something I will always try to be.

There are not thanks enough on this planet for what we owe to John Olguin, but I want to say "thanks" to Gabriel, who is helping to carry the torch that John lit, has carried for generations, and still helps carry, today.