Saturday, June 02, 2007

Weekend Good News and Lighter Issues

Today marks the start of another weekly post. This new post, which I hope to create or have contributors contribute posts too, will try to deal with only good news or news of a lighter variety. This blog is much too serious, most of the time.

This blog endorses all the candidates for the thrown of Queen of the Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta.
This yearly quest and fiesta is another tradition that has gone on for years in San Pedro and I think it is a great way to show our support. A special endorsement goes out to one particular candidate, Ms. Loren Costa. The queen is selected by the number of raffle ticket she sells to support the parish and I encourage everyone to help select the queen of their choice by purchasing tickets that go for just one dollar each. My support is going to Ms. Costa. I also want to thank her dad, Dominick. Not only do I hope Dominick's daughter wins, but I win one of the big prizes in the raffle.

Today marked an experiment I have been thinking about doing while sitting in a chair at R1 signature gathering events. I have always wanted to see what would happen if I tried a very "soft sell" approach to having folks sign the R1 petition.

My idea was to sit at the table, say hello to folks and not directly ask them if they wanted to sign the R1 petition. Well, today was a success for my experiment and I want to thank everyone who signed a petition at the table outside of Albertson't on Saturday June 2.

Of the folks who just walked up and started writing on the petitions, I made sure I knew they knew what they were signing. I guess the R1 banner on the table was quite enough for people to see and know what they chose to do. Some other people walked up to the table and asked if this was the petition that opposed Bob Bisno's plan. I stated that the petition called for maintaining the current zoning of R1 at Ponte Vista, no matter what Bob proposes and that it is an informational petition to be given to Janice Hahn, the rest of the members of the L.A. City Council and, when asked about Lomita, I also said that their City Council will also get signed petitions from folks living in Lomita, a separate city from L.A.

It looks like the buttons and signs and banners, even though they may be hard to figure out, attract members of OUR community knowing what they stand for.

Ray Patricio is still a gift to all of us. Whether it is at a serious CAC meeting, a meeting of R1 supporters, or in a Neighborhood Council meeting, Ray make us all laugh with some of his wise observations and the way he looks at OUR community. Ray is one of the strongest proponents of bringing the goats back to Peck Park, and after watching the Griffith Park fire on T.V., Ray's idea is something we all should take a great look at and bring back the goats.

One of the petition gatherers knows quite well how to speak Spanish. I get a kick out of him saying the word "ponte" as if it was a Spanish word. It is an Italian word and it does not appear in any Spanish to English dictionary. "Ponte" in Italian has a primary English translation of "bridge" as in the Vincent Thomas Bridge. It has several secondary translations such as "bridge" as in the control area of a ship, and "crane" as in the big things we see scattered all over the port.

"Vista" in Italian has a primary translation of "view" in English, and a secondary use as "scaffolding" in English. It is correct to translate "ponte vista" into "crane scaffolding" is so chosen. The marketers for the Navy's sale of the site actually came up with the name before Bob placed his first bid on it.

So how about, in late July, we get Queen Loren Costa to pet the goats at Peck Park while looking at the cranes in the harbor. The goats will probably have to be cutouts, I don't think there are any there right now, or there will be in mid-July.

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