I try my best to avoid posting on any of my blogs on Sundays. I get to clear my head at least one day a week.
This particular Sunday is like no other, not even close, to Sundays that have been at the beginning of weeks since I created this, my first blog, back in September, 2006.
It is the end of just over two weeks of events that have placed my real name on way to many venues that I am sick of reading myself. I can't imagine how the rest of you think when my name and quotes kept cropping up, in so many places.
I will now attempt to go back to where I am most comfortable, hiding in plain sight.
If you would like a little comedy, please visit: www.cavemandairy.blogspot.com. Don't mind the incorrect spelling in the title, it was designed to be the way it is.
NOBODY within R Neighborhoods Are 1 was responsible for the content in the KABC T.V. piece first shown Thursday night.
Please hop on over to: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=6231799 if you haven't seen it.
Even I was a bit shocked and had a bit of guilty pleasure when I saw who I saw in the piece.
Since I know for a fact that representatives of Ponte Vista at San Pedro regularly read this blog, I can just see in my mind's eye what at least one highly placed person did when they saw the news bit.
Hey you-know-who-you-are, we couldn't have made up what was seen during the piece.
In all honesty I must mention that KABC got it dead wrong when the reporter commented over a shot of the good members of Local 802, that a group from Walden House was bused in to demonstrate support for Bob's current plans.
That was tacky, even for me. The gentlemen in the orange shirts were not bused in from Walden House.
I liked Ashley Ratcliff's article in the Saturday edition of The Palos Verdes Peninsula News a bit better than what Donna Littlejohn had in the article in Saturday's Breeze.
Ashely's article appeared on the left side of the first page of the newspaper, above the fold, while too many of us had to search toward page 3 of the Breeze to find Ms. Littlejohn's article.
Since the Breeze has a whole heck of a lot more readers interested in the Ponte Vista issue than does the Peninsula News, one would have thought such an important matter to so many folks living in OUR community would get better placement in a paper so many of us pay for.
I am handing out one of my new "Poor Move" awards to the editor of the Breeze for not placing Donna's article on Page 1.
Whether you support or oppose Bob's plans, the importance of the issues revolving around Ponte Vista at San Pedro deserve much better placement, now more than ever, in the Breeze.
YOU ALL MUST use your opportunities you have on weekends in July to attend "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) presented by Shakespeare by the Sea, but being performed at the Little Fish Theater, in San Pedro.
This is the second time that I am aware of that the play about plays has been in San Pedro.
Even though the inside of the Little Fish Theater has no air conditioning and it will be plenty hot during July, that shouldn't matter when you spend as much as $25.00 per ticket.
Your ticket price is more than well worth it and the play about plays which have many plays within plays is being conducted out of doors, anyway.
If you only know, "Romeo oh Romeo, where for out thou Romeo", "The play's the thing",
"Get thee to a nunnery", "Tis a rock, a cape, a peek..." (sorry, wrong author), you will enjoy the show as you have enjoyed no other comedy of errors being presented on stage.
When a fellow, impersonating a very blond Queen constantly be heard singing, "Popular" and that same actor having way too much fun faking vomiting on audience members throughout the show, all the while you are marveling at the stage and backdrop made from pages of scripts from The Bard, means you, utilizing the available beer and wind to assist you if you wish, will be laughing until you almost cry and/or wet yourself.
This is the first non-free set of performances I think SBTS has ever done and it is more than well taking this show in along with "A Midsummers Night's Dream" and "Antony and Cleopatra" now being the two free shows SBTS puts on, this year.
One of the speakers heard and viewed on the KABC piece is Steve, a resident of the Tennis Club (62 units). His complex is just west of Seaport (136 units), on Fitness Drive.
I think Steve mentioned Casa Verde (129 units) that are on the east end of Fitness Drive.
Why did I publish the number of units along Fitness Drive? For comparison.
Based on Bob's original plans for Ponte Vista, the smallest building he had envisioned was to have 67 units, five more than found at the Tennis Club. His largest building illustrated on the early elevations of the 2,300-unit project was going to be for seniors and have 187 units, 51 units more than what is found at Seaport.
Back then, Ponte Vista was slated to have about 16.9117647 times the number of units of Seaport. Since Bob lowered the number of units he wants built at Ponte Vista down to 1,950-units, now he wants just 14.33823529 times the number of units that are found at what I have called "The Monster" which is Seaport.
The population density Bob currently seeks is about THREE TIMES the population density of The Gardens, and you know how much space that development of condominiums has.
We still don't have an accurate of the number or percentages of the number of condominium units at The Gardens that are actually rented or leased out, or the number of condo owners living there who have tenants living in spare bedrooms.
If these facts could be ascertained, then perhaps, we might be able to present the approximate number of units that are at least partially rented out at a built-out Ponte Vista.
Folks who lease or rent stay at those types of places for shorter periods of time versus owner/occupants of condos and the traffic counts would be completely incorrect if even 10% of the units at Ponte Vista were to become rentals or lease-to-own units.
R Neighborhoods Are 1 is now in contact with the folks in C.A.R.A. in Baldwin Park.
No matter what Bob does or doesn't do to OUR community doesn't amount to a real hill of beans compared to what too many good people in Baldwin Park are facing from Bob.
Bob want the city government of Baldwin Park to use its right of eminent domain to condemn about 125 acres in downtown Baldwin Park, for redevelopment.
Bob wants the City Council members of Baldwin Park, who have fallen under Bob's spell of financial contributions and/or for other reasons, to have good, hard-working business owners and employees AND wonderful residents living in the civic center area of Baldwin Park to lose their homes and/or places of business so Bob MIGHT develop a new downtown that meets his visions of what it could be like, instead of what it continues to be, a real neighborhood of good people who want to keep their lives as they have lived it, for years and years.
Many current members of the community of Baldwin Park enjoy the type of community they are familiar with and with a community that supports their needs.
These good people don't necessarily enjoy a Chili's restaurant or a Dave and Buster's type of establishment. Instead they continue to enjoy small, friendly, and culturally welcome businesses that fit THEIR needs and wants and nothing like what Bob and the Baldwin Park City Council seems to want to force on them.
The Rudderless Steering Committee of R Neighborhoods Are 1 voted some time ago to join with C.A.R.A. and help the fight in Baldwin Park.
The RSC also is looking to join with the good folks in Santa Ana who oppose what Bob is now trying to get more sympathy for and more support for building a 32-story condo tower exactly where much more than many residents of Santa Ana do not want Bob's continued infiltration into their lives and quality of life where they live, work, and shop.
With our three groups joining together, just think how many neighborhoods will come together to help send Bob packing and heading back up north where he might go back to his old ways in Berkeley.
Now, the combined groups might become a better focus point to continue the start of real fights against over developments and those who support over developments in the greater L.A. area.
I hope Zev is watching. I think Tony Villar needs to rethink his support for receiving financial contributions from over developers and their lobbyists, that are going towards what will hopefully be a fruitless attempt for a second term.
Mr. David Zanhiser, Mr. Lopez, and other reporters who know what is going on around here, should learn more about the two, then hopefully the three, groups joining forces to stop Bob.
Oh, the enjoyment I had during Thursday's hearing should probably make me feel guilty. But I don't.
Had Bob not filled the audience with folks from Walden House, Local 802 and others in other Union Locals, opponents of Bob's current plans would have been in the majority.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
An "I'm Really Pissed Off" Post
To all of you supporters of Bob's plans for OUR community.
You have too much gall. You are so smug and arrogant to even try and begin to attempt to criticize me and folks like me, thinking we don't know about change in OUR community.
HOW DARE YOU!
Before you continue to flap your traps about how I might be against further change along Western Avenue, then you had better be able to come at least somewhere close to my experiences living five houses up from Western Avenue, beginning on May 4, 1955.
You have NO CLUE!!!
Even you old-timers who support Bob's plans to change MY Avenue, those of you who live further south in San Pedro, or have lived here longer than my 53 years, 1 month, and 24 days.
If you don't think I have lived through some changes along Western, or in San Pedro, or in OUR community, you need to shut up because you are wearing your ignorance on you sleeve as a patch of dishonor to San Pedro.
Here are some questions I have for all of you:
Did you ever eat at the Harbor Lites Restaurant?
Were you there, in the water of Peck Park Pool the day it opened? I was.
Were you there, in the water of Peck Park Pool some 2,288 Saturdays later, just this past Saturday? I was.
How many times did you pet the calves?
How many times did you watch milk being processed from utter to bottle at the dairy on Western?
Did YOUR father have the keys to the gates of the Standard Oil Tank Farm?
Did you ever finish your meal at the lunch counter at W.T. Grant's and then walk through the indoor passage into Food Giant?
Did you ever get handed a wiener whistle for Little Oscar while he was standing in the doorway of the original Wiener Mobile, and then have the opportunity to take a ride in a tethered helicopter in the same parking lot?
How many times did you beg a parent to allow you to get to play on the wooden landing craft?
Were you in Von's the day it opened and then again the day it finally closed?
How many times have you taken a swim at the Y.M.C.A. when it was in a tall building along Harbor Blvd.?
How many laps have you run on the indoor track, above the gym floor, that was across the street from the Y.?
How many bricks of ice did you buy from the Union Ice Company in order to slide down the hill at Averill Park?
Were YOU there the day the taxicab arrival scene was shot for "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?
Where were you on December 17, 1976? (Ka-boom!!!!!!!)
Have you been shocked when an explosion rocked the Union Oil refinery and you were able to run out and watch the amazing orange glow from the blast?
Should I continue or do you have as many experiences of the changes found along Western Avenue as I have LIVED THROUGH?
If you moved into a brand new home in Rolling Hills Riviera, Rolling Hills Highlands, Westmont, Palo de Encino, Strathmore, The Cape, and Tarragona, you moved into that home at least years AFTER I had been already living in my home.
Note: The last tract of single-family, detached houses built on lots of not less than 5,000 square feet was in 1971.
Since then we have seen just about every type of housing being developed in OUR community.
Just because people believe the misstatement that no R1 housing is being built in L.A. doesn't mean OUR community must have condos like Bob wants, doesn't mean OUR community can't fight and win that type of housing on the last large piece of land that will ever be available in San Pedro.
I think those of us who have seen changes along Western Avenue for at least as long as I have been alive realize that change occurs, no matter what.
Did you ride your bike down the fun hills where The Courtyards now stands?
Don't come to me and even try to suggest that I haven't seen or haven't lived through so many dramatic changes along Western or that I am reluctant to change.
Where was the Flying A gas station?
What was on the site of the Sizzler's before it was that steakhouse.
What was the first thing built where Marie Calendar's now stands?
How many free birthday single scoop ice cream cones did you enjoy at 31 flavors?
What shape, for many years, was served on cones at Thrifty's?
What was the concrete building along Western, next to Lochmann's used for, in the 1960's?
How many times did you hear the air raid siren on the last Friday of every month, at 10:00 AM?
People who claim support for Bob's plans for Ponte Vista, you do know jack sh** about the real changes that have occurred, are occurring now, or will occur in the future, along Western Avenue.
How many storm drains have NOT been relined under Western Avenue?
Where was the original opening gate for Green Hills located?
I have lived these changes. I will live the near future changes. I will deal with the future changes along Western Avenue.
What I don't intend on dealing with are the morons who suggest that opponents of Bob's plans are resistant to change. If you were not born prior to May 3, 1955, you have no real concept of the changes that have occurred along Western Avenue!
If you grew up close to Gaffey and Pacific, you probably rarely traveled up to little Western Avenue when it was not much of a road, compared to those two streets.
How many cartoons have you watched at the Pacific Drive In?
Where was Mr. Lochmann's second dairy store in San Pedro?
Heck, I don't believe many of you supporters of Bob's plans even know where the original end of the Harbor Freeway was.
How many trips on the Islander did you take?
What make of vehicles were sold at Soderstrom's?
Let's compare notes. I'll take my experiences of changes along Western Avenue and the rest of San Pedro and stack them up against yours.
You may be somewhat close if you are over 53-years old and have grown up in this area.
But most of the good members of OUR community that could have come closer to comparing notes with me now can be found at Green Hills or spread under the Pacific Ocean.
I have seen change on Western Avenue and in San Pedro. I appreciate change when it offers true benefits to all of OUR community.
Ponte Vista, as currently planned will not offer enough positive change to offset the incredible negative impacts it will have to OUR community and I think I have enough of a history of experiences to back my statement up.
So to all of you supporters who think "change" in the form of a massive development along Western Avenue in San Pedro being built, your truly don't know what I know and haven't lived the experiences I and others have lived.
As the truth was demonstrated very well at the hearing, more individuals of advanced age oppose Bob's plans than do persons of advanced ages that support his current plans.
Even many of Bob's supporters who are of ages greater than 55 stated, in testimony to the hearing officer that they WOULD NOT buy units anywhere at Ponte Vista.
We had their statements broad casted over life T.V. and they are on tape.
As I have repeated at least several times on my blogs, change is the only constant.
We all MUST deal with change. But the changes Bob wishes to make to OUR community and especially those of us who have lived through the changes that have been made along Western need to be recognized as the real experts concerning Western Avenue and change along it, in OUR community.
I don't like writing about being pissed, but I am just so very tired of having to listen to folks like Rachel Viramontes who support Bob's plans, especially when I was living in my home before hers was even built!
I also find repulsion in all those other folks who claim they know what is best for Western Avenue and OUR community, when they clearly don't have comparable histories of the changes I have witnessed, enjoyed, and dealt with, for so many years.
John Olguin doesn't like Bob's plans, He is someone who betters me by far with his experiences in living through all the changes in OUR community. We need to listen to more people like our Man of the Century who have cared, loved, and experienced OUR community much longer than I have.
Maybe Angie, her son John, and her grandson Taso have had different experiences than I have in living through changes along Western. But I don't remember any Papadakis family member having the similar or different experiences I have had along Western.
Louis and Suzanne love San Pedro. They have given and given of themselves to the betterment of us all and if it hadn't been for Louis, the lights on the bridge would have never been installed.
These five true San Pedrans are a credit to OUR community and I don't place them in the category of folks I am pissed with.
Even though I strongly disagree with the stances taken by these good members of OUR community, they are the best that I can find of Bob's supporters.
Too many of Bob's supporters stand to profit in their businesses from increased numbers of residents in our community. That may be the American way, but that doesn't mean it should be the way of members of OUR community.
We live on a peninsula, at the southern of the second largest city in the nation. That city is located within the Great Basin of the Mojave Desert. These are thing we cannot change.
What we can and should change is our belief that we need to be like the rest of the L.A. area and embrace a dramatic increase in population just because some folks tell us that it is necessary, demanded, and/or wanted.
What in the hell do they know, compared to me. I have lived the changes, they have NOT.
OUR community is too special to become like Santa Monica, which is NOT part of a peninsula.
OUR community has too many really good people already living in it to force on them something they don't want or need.
OUR community has been badly divided by Bob and his project.
OUR community has witnessed a developer spend more than too much money for property such that he needs to build lots and lots and lots of units to cover his costs and make a huge profit.
OUR community should come back from the division created by the entrance of Bob and his group and state that we are a unique community that cannot, should not, and will not do what too many other communities have been forced to live with.
Our community knows that change continues. We do not have to stand silently while OUR community's livability is being challenged and attacked by folks who continue to have no real clue or interest in preserving what we have all come to love, even when change is occurring.
Bob and Bob's supporters, the current plans supported by you for Ponte Vista at San Pedro are just too big. A change of this magnitude will severely and for generations to come, diminish the quality of life in OUR community.
We don't have the space, will, or need to become like so many other communities have become in places like the west side, San Fernando Valley, the Inland Empire, Central L.A., and other areas where over development has changed the very nature of those communities.
Seniors need housing. They have needed it since many of them have arrived from Ischia and Komiza. In those two communities, seniors live with other members of their families, just like what has been done for generations in OUR community.
In OUR community, when our parents and grandparents leave us, there are opportunities that are unlike the other communities mentioned in this post.
OUR community has in its nature, ways to assist our seniors and keep families together, longer than in any of those other cities mentioned.
We have a choice to make. Do we continue to support what we have done for generation after generation, or do we change to succumb like so many other communities have chosen to do and almost completely change the very nature of what it is we love so much about OUR community?
I contend, along with a pretty good background living in OUR community, that we MUST NOT change our very nature and we MUST CERTAINLY NOT make such a dramatic change by allowing Ponte Vista to be built out that would provide too much change in OUR community.
Change is good Too much change is very bad, and almost completely impossible to correct, once it has been accomplished.
Why should we place the very nature of OUR community into the hands of Bob Bisno and the few real supporters he has that actually live in OUR community?
San Pedro is too great to lose.
This "ranting elitist" is done with this post.
You have too much gall. You are so smug and arrogant to even try and begin to attempt to criticize me and folks like me, thinking we don't know about change in OUR community.
HOW DARE YOU!
Before you continue to flap your traps about how I might be against further change along Western Avenue, then you had better be able to come at least somewhere close to my experiences living five houses up from Western Avenue, beginning on May 4, 1955.
You have NO CLUE!!!
Even you old-timers who support Bob's plans to change MY Avenue, those of you who live further south in San Pedro, or have lived here longer than my 53 years, 1 month, and 24 days.
If you don't think I have lived through some changes along Western, or in San Pedro, or in OUR community, you need to shut up because you are wearing your ignorance on you sleeve as a patch of dishonor to San Pedro.
Here are some questions I have for all of you:
Did you ever eat at the Harbor Lites Restaurant?
Were you there, in the water of Peck Park Pool the day it opened? I was.
Were you there, in the water of Peck Park Pool some 2,288 Saturdays later, just this past Saturday? I was.
How many times did you pet the calves?
How many times did you watch milk being processed from utter to bottle at the dairy on Western?
Did YOUR father have the keys to the gates of the Standard Oil Tank Farm?
Did you ever finish your meal at the lunch counter at W.T. Grant's and then walk through the indoor passage into Food Giant?
Did you ever get handed a wiener whistle for Little Oscar while he was standing in the doorway of the original Wiener Mobile, and then have the opportunity to take a ride in a tethered helicopter in the same parking lot?
How many times did you beg a parent to allow you to get to play on the wooden landing craft?
Were you in Von's the day it opened and then again the day it finally closed?
How many times have you taken a swim at the Y.M.C.A. when it was in a tall building along Harbor Blvd.?
How many laps have you run on the indoor track, above the gym floor, that was across the street from the Y.?
How many bricks of ice did you buy from the Union Ice Company in order to slide down the hill at Averill Park?
Were YOU there the day the taxicab arrival scene was shot for "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?
Where were you on December 17, 1976? (Ka-boom!!!!!!!)
Have you been shocked when an explosion rocked the Union Oil refinery and you were able to run out and watch the amazing orange glow from the blast?
Should I continue or do you have as many experiences of the changes found along Western Avenue as I have LIVED THROUGH?
If you moved into a brand new home in Rolling Hills Riviera, Rolling Hills Highlands, Westmont, Palo de Encino, Strathmore, The Cape, and Tarragona, you moved into that home at least years AFTER I had been already living in my home.
Note: The last tract of single-family, detached houses built on lots of not less than 5,000 square feet was in 1971.
Since then we have seen just about every type of housing being developed in OUR community.
Just because people believe the misstatement that no R1 housing is being built in L.A. doesn't mean OUR community must have condos like Bob wants, doesn't mean OUR community can't fight and win that type of housing on the last large piece of land that will ever be available in San Pedro.
I think those of us who have seen changes along Western Avenue for at least as long as I have been alive realize that change occurs, no matter what.
Did you ride your bike down the fun hills where The Courtyards now stands?
Don't come to me and even try to suggest that I haven't seen or haven't lived through so many dramatic changes along Western or that I am reluctant to change.
Where was the Flying A gas station?
What was on the site of the Sizzler's before it was that steakhouse.
What was the first thing built where Marie Calendar's now stands?
How many free birthday single scoop ice cream cones did you enjoy at 31 flavors?
What shape, for many years, was served on cones at Thrifty's?
What was the concrete building along Western, next to Lochmann's used for, in the 1960's?
How many times did you hear the air raid siren on the last Friday of every month, at 10:00 AM?
People who claim support for Bob's plans for Ponte Vista, you do know jack sh** about the real changes that have occurred, are occurring now, or will occur in the future, along Western Avenue.
How many storm drains have NOT been relined under Western Avenue?
Where was the original opening gate for Green Hills located?
I have lived these changes. I will live the near future changes. I will deal with the future changes along Western Avenue.
What I don't intend on dealing with are the morons who suggest that opponents of Bob's plans are resistant to change. If you were not born prior to May 3, 1955, you have no real concept of the changes that have occurred along Western Avenue!
If you grew up close to Gaffey and Pacific, you probably rarely traveled up to little Western Avenue when it was not much of a road, compared to those two streets.
How many cartoons have you watched at the Pacific Drive In?
Where was Mr. Lochmann's second dairy store in San Pedro?
Heck, I don't believe many of you supporters of Bob's plans even know where the original end of the Harbor Freeway was.
How many trips on the Islander did you take?
What make of vehicles were sold at Soderstrom's?
Let's compare notes. I'll take my experiences of changes along Western Avenue and the rest of San Pedro and stack them up against yours.
You may be somewhat close if you are over 53-years old and have grown up in this area.
But most of the good members of OUR community that could have come closer to comparing notes with me now can be found at Green Hills or spread under the Pacific Ocean.
I have seen change on Western Avenue and in San Pedro. I appreciate change when it offers true benefits to all of OUR community.
Ponte Vista, as currently planned will not offer enough positive change to offset the incredible negative impacts it will have to OUR community and I think I have enough of a history of experiences to back my statement up.
So to all of you supporters who think "change" in the form of a massive development along Western Avenue in San Pedro being built, your truly don't know what I know and haven't lived the experiences I and others have lived.
As the truth was demonstrated very well at the hearing, more individuals of advanced age oppose Bob's plans than do persons of advanced ages that support his current plans.
Even many of Bob's supporters who are of ages greater than 55 stated, in testimony to the hearing officer that they WOULD NOT buy units anywhere at Ponte Vista.
We had their statements broad casted over life T.V. and they are on tape.
As I have repeated at least several times on my blogs, change is the only constant.
We all MUST deal with change. But the changes Bob wishes to make to OUR community and especially those of us who have lived through the changes that have been made along Western need to be recognized as the real experts concerning Western Avenue and change along it, in OUR community.
I don't like writing about being pissed, but I am just so very tired of having to listen to folks like Rachel Viramontes who support Bob's plans, especially when I was living in my home before hers was even built!
I also find repulsion in all those other folks who claim they know what is best for Western Avenue and OUR community, when they clearly don't have comparable histories of the changes I have witnessed, enjoyed, and dealt with, for so many years.
John Olguin doesn't like Bob's plans, He is someone who betters me by far with his experiences in living through all the changes in OUR community. We need to listen to more people like our Man of the Century who have cared, loved, and experienced OUR community much longer than I have.
Maybe Angie, her son John, and her grandson Taso have had different experiences than I have in living through changes along Western. But I don't remember any Papadakis family member having the similar or different experiences I have had along Western.
Louis and Suzanne love San Pedro. They have given and given of themselves to the betterment of us all and if it hadn't been for Louis, the lights on the bridge would have never been installed.
These five true San Pedrans are a credit to OUR community and I don't place them in the category of folks I am pissed with.
Even though I strongly disagree with the stances taken by these good members of OUR community, they are the best that I can find of Bob's supporters.
Too many of Bob's supporters stand to profit in their businesses from increased numbers of residents in our community. That may be the American way, but that doesn't mean it should be the way of members of OUR community.
We live on a peninsula, at the southern of the second largest city in the nation. That city is located within the Great Basin of the Mojave Desert. These are thing we cannot change.
What we can and should change is our belief that we need to be like the rest of the L.A. area and embrace a dramatic increase in population just because some folks tell us that it is necessary, demanded, and/or wanted.
What in the hell do they know, compared to me. I have lived the changes, they have NOT.
OUR community is too special to become like Santa Monica, which is NOT part of a peninsula.
OUR community has too many really good people already living in it to force on them something they don't want or need.
OUR community has been badly divided by Bob and his project.
OUR community has witnessed a developer spend more than too much money for property such that he needs to build lots and lots and lots of units to cover his costs and make a huge profit.
OUR community should come back from the division created by the entrance of Bob and his group and state that we are a unique community that cannot, should not, and will not do what too many other communities have been forced to live with.
Our community knows that change continues. We do not have to stand silently while OUR community's livability is being challenged and attacked by folks who continue to have no real clue or interest in preserving what we have all come to love, even when change is occurring.
Bob and Bob's supporters, the current plans supported by you for Ponte Vista at San Pedro are just too big. A change of this magnitude will severely and for generations to come, diminish the quality of life in OUR community.
We don't have the space, will, or need to become like so many other communities have become in places like the west side, San Fernando Valley, the Inland Empire, Central L.A., and other areas where over development has changed the very nature of those communities.
Seniors need housing. They have needed it since many of them have arrived from Ischia and Komiza. In those two communities, seniors live with other members of their families, just like what has been done for generations in OUR community.
In OUR community, when our parents and grandparents leave us, there are opportunities that are unlike the other communities mentioned in this post.
OUR community has in its nature, ways to assist our seniors and keep families together, longer than in any of those other cities mentioned.
We have a choice to make. Do we continue to support what we have done for generation after generation, or do we change to succumb like so many other communities have chosen to do and almost completely change the very nature of what it is we love so much about OUR community?
I contend, along with a pretty good background living in OUR community, that we MUST NOT change our very nature and we MUST CERTAINLY NOT make such a dramatic change by allowing Ponte Vista to be built out that would provide too much change in OUR community.
Change is good Too much change is very bad, and almost completely impossible to correct, once it has been accomplished.
Why should we place the very nature of OUR community into the hands of Bob Bisno and the few real supporters he has that actually live in OUR community?
San Pedro is too great to lose.
This "ranting elitist" is done with this post.
Odds and Ends 71
If you are of a mind to try and attempt any guess at how many bedrooms might be planned at Ponte Vista if Bob gets all of his 1,950-condos, you are more than welcome to visit the January, 2007 posts on this blog.
During the January 18, 2007 CAC meeting, Bob and I had a little side-meeting.
I asked Bob what he considered would be the percentages of each different type of units he was then planning to build in a 2,300-condo development.
He provided me with his comments that I scribbled down (I'm left-handed, please allow for chicken scratch) what he was thinking as to the breakdown of the different types of condos.
For example, Bob told me he thought that 10% of the units in the non-age restricted units would have four bedrooms, each. At that time that 10% equaled just over 172-four bedroom units.
Bob also gave me percentages that suggested that 16% of the units back then would be either lofts or studios. A loft has a sleeping area above the larger space of the rest of the unit.
Bob opined that the majority of units in the non-age restricted area would have three-bedrooms if memory serves me.
Bob told me he was guessing that the majority of senior units would have many two-bedroom condos and a very few three-bedroom units.
If you go back, use the breakdown that Bob gave me for 2,300 units, adjust the numbers for a 1,950-unit Ponte Vista, with 850-senior units, 100-attached townhouses, and 1,000-non age restricted condos, perhaps you can come up with your own ideas about the number of bedrooms that MIGHT be at Ponte Vista.
Why is knowing how many bedrooms might be at the site, important?
Well, for several reasons.
If Bob has thus far been unwilling to publish more public numbers as to the projected number of bedrooms he is planning on building, he may very well be hiding behind the idea that he can get through the approval processes without revealing any real numbers as to the overall estimated population of residents at Ponte Vista.
Many folks who purchase or lease multi-bedroom units have to resort to renting out extra bedrooms in order to pay help page the mortgage/lease/rental/HOA fees and dues.
Having renters living at Ponte Vista would extremely impact the traffic counts, numbers of vehicles, levels of service as far as traffic passes through intersections, so forth and so on.
There can be no true accounting for the number of school-age children that might need to have seats in public schools allotted for them, if the number of bedrooms remains outside the discussion. Any prediction of the number of school seats required is currently impossible to accurately calculate, if the number of bedrooms is not known.
Knowing how many bedrooms might be at Ponte Vista allows you to think of compromise numbers and types of condos Bob could get approval to build.
___________________________________________________
It looks like we all had our only public hearing concerning Ponte Vista, being in San Pedro.
It strongly looks like the hearings before the Planning Commission and the meetings of the City Council where Ponte Vista may come up, will be held in downtown Los. Angeles.
Bob has plenty of bucks to hire bus companies to transport supporters of his plans, downtown.
More information about how folks like me and the thousands of members of OUR community who oppose Bob's current plans, will come closer to the hearing and meeting dates of the Commission and the Council. Don't worry, you will be assisted in your efforts to travel downtown to address your concerns.
___________________________________________________
I didn' see San Pedro's honorary Mayor at the hearing. There could be many good reasons why Joe Donato wasn't there to offered his continued support of Bob's current plans.
Another reason could have been regarding ILWU Local 13's take on the project.
I also don't remember hearing from Jim Stanovich, a fellow who assisted in the selling down the river of so many of our local ball players.
It looks like Eastview Little has only two more seasons on Knoll Hill. Would new ball fields at Ponte Vista be the first project to be completed on the site, once Bob receives entitlements to build with a higher density than R1?
If that doesn't happen within the time frame EVLL needs, and according to more that a large amount of folks who have definite opinions, EVLL may need to look for fields in Long Beach, Lomita, Wilmington, Harbor City, or Temecula because there is absolutely, positively no place where EVLL would be welcome in San Pedro or R.P.V. with the current management they have.
It may come to pass that children wishing to play in the Eastview Little League will have to find a game for use on their Wii, because their management has burned all the bridges in San Pedro and R.P.V.
_________________________________________________
If you weren't pronto in visiting Pronto's on Western, you are now unable to feed your hunger for good food, at that establishment.
________________________________________________
Along Western Avenue from north of Sepulveda in Torrance, all the way down to just before you crash through the fence and plumet down onto Royal Palms, there are just three gas stations currently operating.
Chevron at P.C.H., Shell at Park Western, and Mobile at 25Th Street.
We will welcome back another 25% when the Chevron at Crestwood re-opens.
The ARCO at 7Th and Weymouth is now closed and fenced off.
There has been an application created to remove the Valero station on P.V. Drive North and replace it with a new Rite Aid.
Now think about trying to fuel your vehicle after Ponte Vista is built out, with so few filling stations in the local area.
_______________________________________________
Answers to some questions you may have to observations on another post that I will create after this post is posted:
Park Plaza shopping center.
Thrifty's.
Down in the Highlands.
In very small wooden pens not much bigger than they were.
At the bottom of Trudie.
Near where the neighborhood market was. It is now Lou's Flooring.
1962. 1971, 37-years ago.
________________________________________________
During the January 18, 2007 CAC meeting, Bob and I had a little side-meeting.
I asked Bob what he considered would be the percentages of each different type of units he was then planning to build in a 2,300-condo development.
He provided me with his comments that I scribbled down (I'm left-handed, please allow for chicken scratch) what he was thinking as to the breakdown of the different types of condos.
For example, Bob told me he thought that 10% of the units in the non-age restricted units would have four bedrooms, each. At that time that 10% equaled just over 172-four bedroom units.
Bob also gave me percentages that suggested that 16% of the units back then would be either lofts or studios. A loft has a sleeping area above the larger space of the rest of the unit.
Bob opined that the majority of units in the non-age restricted area would have three-bedrooms if memory serves me.
Bob told me he was guessing that the majority of senior units would have many two-bedroom condos and a very few three-bedroom units.
If you go back, use the breakdown that Bob gave me for 2,300 units, adjust the numbers for a 1,950-unit Ponte Vista, with 850-senior units, 100-attached townhouses, and 1,000-non age restricted condos, perhaps you can come up with your own ideas about the number of bedrooms that MIGHT be at Ponte Vista.
Why is knowing how many bedrooms might be at the site, important?
Well, for several reasons.
If Bob has thus far been unwilling to publish more public numbers as to the projected number of bedrooms he is planning on building, he may very well be hiding behind the idea that he can get through the approval processes without revealing any real numbers as to the overall estimated population of residents at Ponte Vista.
Many folks who purchase or lease multi-bedroom units have to resort to renting out extra bedrooms in order to pay help page the mortgage/lease/rental/HOA fees and dues.
Having renters living at Ponte Vista would extremely impact the traffic counts, numbers of vehicles, levels of service as far as traffic passes through intersections, so forth and so on.
There can be no true accounting for the number of school-age children that might need to have seats in public schools allotted for them, if the number of bedrooms remains outside the discussion. Any prediction of the number of school seats required is currently impossible to accurately calculate, if the number of bedrooms is not known.
Knowing how many bedrooms might be at Ponte Vista allows you to think of compromise numbers and types of condos Bob could get approval to build.
___________________________________________________
It looks like we all had our only public hearing concerning Ponte Vista, being in San Pedro.
It strongly looks like the hearings before the Planning Commission and the meetings of the City Council where Ponte Vista may come up, will be held in downtown Los. Angeles.
Bob has plenty of bucks to hire bus companies to transport supporters of his plans, downtown.
More information about how folks like me and the thousands of members of OUR community who oppose Bob's current plans, will come closer to the hearing and meeting dates of the Commission and the Council. Don't worry, you will be assisted in your efforts to travel downtown to address your concerns.
___________________________________________________
I didn' see San Pedro's honorary Mayor at the hearing. There could be many good reasons why Joe Donato wasn't there to offered his continued support of Bob's current plans.
Another reason could have been regarding ILWU Local 13's take on the project.
I also don't remember hearing from Jim Stanovich, a fellow who assisted in the selling down the river of so many of our local ball players.
It looks like Eastview Little has only two more seasons on Knoll Hill. Would new ball fields at Ponte Vista be the first project to be completed on the site, once Bob receives entitlements to build with a higher density than R1?
If that doesn't happen within the time frame EVLL needs, and according to more that a large amount of folks who have definite opinions, EVLL may need to look for fields in Long Beach, Lomita, Wilmington, Harbor City, or Temecula because there is absolutely, positively no place where EVLL would be welcome in San Pedro or R.P.V. with the current management they have.
It may come to pass that children wishing to play in the Eastview Little League will have to find a game for use on their Wii, because their management has burned all the bridges in San Pedro and R.P.V.
_________________________________________________
If you weren't pronto in visiting Pronto's on Western, you are now unable to feed your hunger for good food, at that establishment.
________________________________________________
Along Western Avenue from north of Sepulveda in Torrance, all the way down to just before you crash through the fence and plumet down onto Royal Palms, there are just three gas stations currently operating.
Chevron at P.C.H., Shell at Park Western, and Mobile at 25Th Street.
We will welcome back another 25% when the Chevron at Crestwood re-opens.
The ARCO at 7Th and Weymouth is now closed and fenced off.
There has been an application created to remove the Valero station on P.V. Drive North and replace it with a new Rite Aid.
Now think about trying to fuel your vehicle after Ponte Vista is built out, with so few filling stations in the local area.
_______________________________________________
Answers to some questions you may have to observations on another post that I will create after this post is posted:
Park Plaza shopping center.
Thrifty's.
Down in the Highlands.
In very small wooden pens not much bigger than they were.
At the bottom of Trudie.
Near where the neighborhood market was. It is now Lou's Flooring.
1962. 1971, 37-years ago.
________________________________________________
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Highlights and Low lights of the Hearing
First, I think OUR entire community, residents of San Pedro, R.P.V., Harbor City, Lomita, and yes, even Wilmington made up the best highlight of the public hearing regarding Ponte Vista.
Whether folks in these groups support what Bob wants to do or the many other folks who have a more correct opinion on what should happen at Ponte Vista, ( for almost the compete number of these folks) I think we all made OUR community proud.
There were a great many highlights and low lights dealing with the hearing, and some things that were just plain funny.
Just about everybody who stayed the entire 5+ hour hearing was amazed at the size of the bladder of the hearing officer, Mr. Forman.
The hearing officer was very courteous and sat listening very intently to each and every speaker, while drinking bottles of water and WITHOUT needing a break to visit the I.P.S.R.U.
(Indoor Personal Stress Relieving Unit).
Here are some of the highlights and low lights that occured prior to the hearing.
Both camps, supporters and correct-thinking people, set up tables and provided information to their respective groups.
I got a brand new cell phone that I don't as yet, know how to transfer photos to my computer, so I am not able to share the cute, Ponte Vista Mass Transit System.
The P.V.M.T.S. is an electric cart emblazzoned with the Ponte Vista logo and having several rows of seats that transported individuals from the auditorium site to the Bath House, where a dinner that included egg salad sandwiches was held.
Local 802 of a Union had lots of folks wearing orange Local 802 shirts and those fellows carried around the new sign that Ponte Vista has strung up on their fence along Western.
These fellows were friendly and one even attempted to engage is a debate with me concerning Ponte Vista. Bad move on his part.
During the time this gentleman, also wearing a yellow piece of paper identifying him as a Ponte Vista supporter, was attempting to use his almost complete lack of true facts against me, a fellow in a light pink shirt approached the two of us.
As this pink-shirted fellow got closer, I asked the Ponte Vista supporter if he knew who was approaching us. The orange-shirted, yellow Ponte Vista supporter-papered fellow did not know who was coming up to greet us, until I introduced him to the pink-shirted fellow.....Mr. Bob Bisno!
If Ponte Vista supporters don't even know who Bob Bisno is, then what does that tell you?
A short time before Councilwoman Hahn pulled up to attend the hearing, a big bus arrived and a large group of gentleman exited the bus and headed over to the auditorium. Apparently, Bob really needed to bus 'supporters' in as he didn't seem to have enough local-resident support to fill the seats.
A couple of gentleman stopped by the R1 table to see what 'we' doing, so we had the opportunity to ask questions of these 'supporters'.
Bob contracted with a bus company to bring a group of 'supporters' from Walden House, a center in Inglewood for men who have had some troubles and are now in recovery or in a half-way facility.
One of the gentleman explained when asked why he 'supported' Ponte Vista replied that Bob might provide jobs for the men and that sometimes, Bob had work for them to do at Ponte Vista.
It should be pointed out that it strongly appeared that none of the gentleman who came off the bus, including the driver, would ever have enough income to qualify for "workforce housing" Bob wants to build.
I take Bob's seat fillers from Walden House as a low light to the hearing and Bob's ability to get enough 'supporters' to attend the hearing.
A highlight for myself and several others, on the correct side of the Ponte Vista issue, was being interviewed for KPFK radio, outside the auditorium. The reporter suggested to me that I will be heard on Friday's broadcast and as someone who has KPFK and KPPC buttoned in my Element, I was happy to provide my opinion.
Another highlight was the amazing number of people who walked faster than a stroll to get to the R1 tables set up outside the auditorium.
I made over 750 red buttons during the last two weeks and now there are only about 275 left that have not been given out. Not all of the 750 wer worn during the hearing, but there were several hundred buttons worn by folks both inside the auditorium and in the outside overflow seating area.
The low light concerning the buttons is that time, money, and patience were required to make all those buttons and the Ponte Vista folks had only stick-on pieces of paper to hand out. If I had known they wouldn't even provide folks with a button, perhaps I would have also created and produced much less costly paper buttons to hand out.
The highlight of the buttons were that some many people took and wore the buttons and they are a whole lot more classier that the Ponte Vista paper things that probably come on a roll.
During the hearing, the applicant, represented by Mr. Alan Abshez, Bob's attorney on his Ponte Vista dealings, spoke on behalf of the applicant.
The largest low light from the folks from Ponte Vista, during Mr. Abshez's remarks was the presentation of a video purported to be showing the number of vehicles entering or exiting a site with an average of just over 6 vehicles passing the camera, every minute.
The video did NOT show the number of vehicles PASSING the intersection and not entering or leaving the project site.
It demonstrated clearly to me that had traffic proposed to be what may be going PASSED Ponte Vista, along Western Avenue been viewed, it would have certainly illustrated the massive increase of traffic passing through the intersection and thereby showing the hearing officer that the levels of service at those intersections would be incredibly lowered and the grades for the levels of service would be much lower than they currently are, even with Mary Star traffic (which WAS NOT) incorporated at the main entrance of Ponte Vista.
It was completely disenguous to not include the view of vehicles entering and exiting the main entrance of Ponte Vista during peak hours when school traffic dramatically increases the counts.
Ponte Vista staff did not show what is actually happening at the intersection of Western Avenue and S. John Montgomery with absolutely zero residents currently living on the Ponte Vista site.
Just imagine what is actually happening now and what might happen with a fully filled (600-student) Mary Star High School AND traffic from 1,950 condos begins?
Mr. Abshez provided me with more than a few low lights, especially when he mentioned the minority report from Councilwoman Janice Hahn's Community Advisory Committee.
I strongly must submit that he mis-charicterized the CAC's position and final report and he provided a stern negative view of the CAC.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn provided some highlights during her testimony to the hearing officer.
I wish she had told the hearing officer that she still supports only R1 remaining the zoning at Ponte Vista, but she was still very critical of the developer and the development.
Councilman Steve Wolowicz from my city of Rancho Palos Verdes spoke to the hearing officer. He provided me and other R.P.V. residents several highlights to the hearing officer.
One low light Councilman Wolowicz repeated was the Planning Departments refusal to call for the recirculation of the DEIR.
Another highlight occured when a representative from Lomita reported that city's opposition to Bob's current plans.
Highlights, low lights, and just plain funny statements came from members of the audience that chose to provide oral testimony to the hearing officer.
Jody showed up with several photos of the Amerigas tanks and the blast zone that would be created if they blew up. Ponte Vista was completely within the blast zone, along with so many other areas and residential units in the nearby areas.
No matter whether Jody's testimony was a highlight or a low light, may not matter. What was important that she showed was more of a fireball and a really huge, Ka-boom!
A supporter of Ponte Vista seemed to announce his support for "Mr. Brisno", perhaps he was nervous. Of course he may not know who Bob Bisno is, just like the fellow who tried to debate me. (What a hopeless, feeble, and not-too-intelligent thing to try to do, if you don't have all your ducks in a row, we think. And this poor fellow had no idea who I am, or how involved I have been, or how much I really know about Ponte Vista)>
I tried to suggest to folks not to enter into debates at the hearing, but not everybody on this planet reads this blog. Is this a highlight or a low light?
The term "single level residences" was used to describe the units proposed at Ponte Vista.
In R1 terms, it means single-story homes, no stairs.
During the applicant's opening remarks, there was no mention of the most important traffic mitigation Bob was originally proposing to fund, traffic signal synchronization.
A highlight, mentioned by others of correct thinking, stated that ATSAC was already being installed at taxpayers' expence and that it would all be completed before Bob ever had the chance to include it as one of his "community benefits".
The crowd was given a wonderful highlight when a representative from the Sierra Club spoke to the hearing officer.
"T" suggested that he didn't care how many units could be built. He DID call for a zoning change at Ponte Vista......to Agriculture ONLY zoning.
I stop here to remind folks that prior to the three large structures were built on Fitness Drive (Tennis Club Condos, Seaport homes...lease to own, and Casa Verde) Mr Walter Lochmann owned a dairy and had milk cows, some steers, and even more than a few cute calves on the site.
Fitness Drive was the old asphalt to dirt route down the hill by the pens and feeding troughs, and all the way down to where the old wooden landing craft from WWII were stored.
Way to go "T"! You brought laughter to the crowd and your idea might not be that bad.
Please no more cows though. Flowers smell so much better.
Getting back into the hearing, a person who lives in downtown San Pedro favored R1.
This person was also critical by the fact that they have been repeatedly approached by some women attempting to get them to sign support for Ponte Vista petitions.
This witty person referred the two, paid, signature gatherers as, "Bisno's working girls."
In fairness, I'd have to give that comment a low light.
Sadly I must report that the worst, most disgusting comment during the hearing, came from one of us.
A speaker stated that every person wearing a yellow Ponte Vista supporters' button was being "paid off" by Bob.
That brought about a great number of hallers, shouts, and foul words and thoughts.
This was the lowest of low lights, in my opinion.
After the comment was made I talked to the person who made it. I told "R" that I didn't necessarily disagree with the basis of his point, but I suggested to him that the words he chose were not too good.
I think "R" could have made a similar statement, choosing better wording, that would have better stated what he wanted to say and something I could agree with.
A correct-thinking individual suggested to the hearing officer that it was poor to support Ponte Vista and attempts to create a "psuedo Tuscani" at Ponte Vista. This was another highlight in my book.
The great Ray Patricio spoke to the hearing and as always, he made everyone crack up with his comments. Ray provides great highlights wherever he speaks and he is a true San Pedro treasure.
Now if he can only get the goats back to Peck Park canyon, that would be even greater.
Remember the CAC? seven members of Ms. Hahn's CAC spoke. A low light was that none of the five members of the CAC that wrote and supported the minority report, which Alan Abshez related to, showed up at the hearing.
Rick, Dick, John, Lucie, Chuck, and Leah spoke at the hearing and that was a real highlight.
I was also a member of the CAC from August, 2006 until I accepted a seat on the Rancho Palos Verdes Traffic Safety Commission and left the CAC in April, 2007. I did however, attend every public meeting of the CAC and several of the closed-door meetings of that group.
Highlights were provided by different folks that said a variety of things like;
"Zoning has to mean something."
"Can you spell s-p-e-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n?"
Terri said "it's like trying to stuff an elephant into a Volkswagen."
There were many others who offered highlights.
Another highlight for me was that many folks who spoke in support of Bob's plans actually had little knowledge of what those plans really are.
There were many supporters that knew what Bob is attempting to do to OUR community, and they were knowledgeable.
There was more of a smattering of the use of the word "affordable" and many of those came from correct thinking speakers who suggested that nobody really knows what that word means when it is applied to units at Ponte Vista.
Hardly any supporter was able to provide the projected price of a 600 square foot loft at Ponte Vista. I know what the projected price currently is. Don't you think supporters of Bob 's plans should know more about all the information than I do? (Bob is claiming that the least-priced unit would be about $330,000, not counting on monthly HOA fees.)
Mr. Steve Afrait, the number one lobbyist in the city of Los Angeles thanked me for providing a description of him for folks (supporters) who have know idea of who he is or what he does for Bob. Steve told me that my identification of him allowed him to keep his jacket off at the hearing in the warm auditorium.
The last speaker at the hearing, on the public side, was former Councilman Rudy Svornich, jr.
He spoke quite well, I was told by a reliable person that for $12,000.00 per month from Bisno Development Company, LLC, Rudy needed to speak well enough to earn his pay.
Alan Abshez, the applicant, ended the evening by having a chance to respond to the comments made during the evening.
Alan provided a very low low lights when he opined that perhaps the CAC was not the correct way to proceed, almost two years ago.
Alan needs to be reminded by Bob that it was Bob and Councilwoman Hahns' collaborations that brought about the CAC and that Bob funded the meeting spaces, and yes, even the dinners for CAC members and other staff members.
If, in perfect 20/20 hindsight, the CAC might not have been a good idea, especially when the final report did not support what Bob wants. it too bad, get over it!
If blaming the creation of a group led to findings the applicant didn't like, then why on earth was Bob unwilling to work proactively with the members of the CAC, to come up with something a majority of members could vote to support?
Bob can't have it both ways (like many people commented he has had up until now). Either you support the majority findings of the group you had created and fed, or you keep silent, lest you are found to be speaking out of both sides of your mouth and needing to downplay the findings of a group you had created.
A real highlight found just over five hours after it began, was that it finally came to and end.
A giant highlight was all the good folks from the Planning Department that administered the hearing. Everyone for that group was extremely cordial and they all worked very hard to provide a truly great hearing atmosphere and setting.
My hat comes off for all those in the Planning Depart that stayed until after 10:00 PM. We all need to know that those folks still had to be transported back to their own homes and hardly any individual who came to the hearing from the Planning Department lives in San Pedro, eastern Rancho Palos Verdes or other nearby areas.
They all had a ways to travel, after 10:00 PM. I appreciate their services.
A low light light for local San Pedro residents on both sides of the issue was that my mug appeared on area cable channels twice this week.
NOISE members spent 8 hours waiting to speak at the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, about plans to build a new high school campus on the Upper Reservation of fort MacArthur. Our faces appeared live and on tape on the LAUSD T.V. Channel.
The public hearing was presented live and also taped for San Pedro channel 35. Four members of NOISE, who are also members of R Neighborhoods Are 1, appeared at the two televized events.
A highlight at the public hearing was for me, seeing how approachable Bob was when he was not sitting in the front row. He engaged supporters, naturally, and he also was polite to those of us on the correct-thinking side of the Ponte Vista issue.
Also attending the hearing was one of two financial managers Bisno Development has been working with, from the primary financial institution that is expected to fund the development of the site, once entitlements are granted.
Entitlements are specific guidelines for each subdivision of the site, and provides the reciepient of those entitlements the right to build structures on each parcel, approved of by the placement of specific plan zoning for a property.
Bob Bisno is currently entitled to build single-family, detached residential units on lots of not less than 5,000 square feet.
Bob, with the specific plan zoning he is seeking, would be able to construct structures allowed for each separate subdivided parcel at Ponte Vista.
Bob's application is to subdivide the site into 33 lots where specific numbers of structures and amenities is alloted for each lot.
Whether entitlements remain as they currently are, or changed as a result of a zoning change, the person or group holding entitlements to the lots or parcels has the right to sell those entitlements.
Bob has financial managers who represent a major financial institution that seems currently willing and able to fund entitlements that may be granted in the future, at Ponte Vista.
As I was able to confirm this during the hearing, it is up to each individual to determine on their own, if this is a highlight or a low light.
Right now I won't opine whether it is a highlight or a low light for me.
Bob can build right now (according to the current zoning), he can sell right now, he could build according to future approved entitlements, he could sell future entitlements approved of for the site, without developing the lots.
A real highlight for me that happened beginning at the end of the hearing was that I can now take a break from dealing as much as I have during the last several weeks, on the issue.
I can contend that this highlight is a highlight for everyone on both sides of the issue.
HOWEVER, since the written comment period has been extended until July 11, correct thinking individuals are strongly encouraged to continue to write comments to the hearing officer. The longer the better in my book.
Also, correct-thinking individuals are not limited in the number of sets of comments they can create and send in as part of their overall testimony concerning Ponte Vista.
I'll have a little more information about the written comments I am submitting, after July 11.
Thank you so very much to all the correct-thinking folks that wore the real buttons and spoke their own minds at the hearing. We all heard "talking points" from only the project's supportive side and our side created so many sets of diverse, interesting, and intelligent oral testimony I can only determine that these were very high highlights.
Whether folks in these groups support what Bob wants to do or the many other folks who have a more correct opinion on what should happen at Ponte Vista, ( for almost the compete number of these folks) I think we all made OUR community proud.
There were a great many highlights and low lights dealing with the hearing, and some things that were just plain funny.
Just about everybody who stayed the entire 5+ hour hearing was amazed at the size of the bladder of the hearing officer, Mr. Forman.
The hearing officer was very courteous and sat listening very intently to each and every speaker, while drinking bottles of water and WITHOUT needing a break to visit the I.P.S.R.U.
(Indoor Personal Stress Relieving Unit).
Here are some of the highlights and low lights that occured prior to the hearing.
Both camps, supporters and correct-thinking people, set up tables and provided information to their respective groups.
I got a brand new cell phone that I don't as yet, know how to transfer photos to my computer, so I am not able to share the cute, Ponte Vista Mass Transit System.
The P.V.M.T.S. is an electric cart emblazzoned with the Ponte Vista logo and having several rows of seats that transported individuals from the auditorium site to the Bath House, where a dinner that included egg salad sandwiches was held.
Local 802 of a Union had lots of folks wearing orange Local 802 shirts and those fellows carried around the new sign that Ponte Vista has strung up on their fence along Western.
These fellows were friendly and one even attempted to engage is a debate with me concerning Ponte Vista. Bad move on his part.
During the time this gentleman, also wearing a yellow piece of paper identifying him as a Ponte Vista supporter, was attempting to use his almost complete lack of true facts against me, a fellow in a light pink shirt approached the two of us.
As this pink-shirted fellow got closer, I asked the Ponte Vista supporter if he knew who was approaching us. The orange-shirted, yellow Ponte Vista supporter-papered fellow did not know who was coming up to greet us, until I introduced him to the pink-shirted fellow.....Mr. Bob Bisno!
If Ponte Vista supporters don't even know who Bob Bisno is, then what does that tell you?
A short time before Councilwoman Hahn pulled up to attend the hearing, a big bus arrived and a large group of gentleman exited the bus and headed over to the auditorium. Apparently, Bob really needed to bus 'supporters' in as he didn't seem to have enough local-resident support to fill the seats.
A couple of gentleman stopped by the R1 table to see what 'we' doing, so we had the opportunity to ask questions of these 'supporters'.
Bob contracted with a bus company to bring a group of 'supporters' from Walden House, a center in Inglewood for men who have had some troubles and are now in recovery or in a half-way facility.
One of the gentleman explained when asked why he 'supported' Ponte Vista replied that Bob might provide jobs for the men and that sometimes, Bob had work for them to do at Ponte Vista.
It should be pointed out that it strongly appeared that none of the gentleman who came off the bus, including the driver, would ever have enough income to qualify for "workforce housing" Bob wants to build.
I take Bob's seat fillers from Walden House as a low light to the hearing and Bob's ability to get enough 'supporters' to attend the hearing.
A highlight for myself and several others, on the correct side of the Ponte Vista issue, was being interviewed for KPFK radio, outside the auditorium. The reporter suggested to me that I will be heard on Friday's broadcast and as someone who has KPFK and KPPC buttoned in my Element, I was happy to provide my opinion.
Another highlight was the amazing number of people who walked faster than a stroll to get to the R1 tables set up outside the auditorium.
I made over 750 red buttons during the last two weeks and now there are only about 275 left that have not been given out. Not all of the 750 wer worn during the hearing, but there were several hundred buttons worn by folks both inside the auditorium and in the outside overflow seating area.
The low light concerning the buttons is that time, money, and patience were required to make all those buttons and the Ponte Vista folks had only stick-on pieces of paper to hand out. If I had known they wouldn't even provide folks with a button, perhaps I would have also created and produced much less costly paper buttons to hand out.
The highlight of the buttons were that some many people took and wore the buttons and they are a whole lot more classier that the Ponte Vista paper things that probably come on a roll.
During the hearing, the applicant, represented by Mr. Alan Abshez, Bob's attorney on his Ponte Vista dealings, spoke on behalf of the applicant.
The largest low light from the folks from Ponte Vista, during Mr. Abshez's remarks was the presentation of a video purported to be showing the number of vehicles entering or exiting a site with an average of just over 6 vehicles passing the camera, every minute.
The video did NOT show the number of vehicles PASSING the intersection and not entering or leaving the project site.
It demonstrated clearly to me that had traffic proposed to be what may be going PASSED Ponte Vista, along Western Avenue been viewed, it would have certainly illustrated the massive increase of traffic passing through the intersection and thereby showing the hearing officer that the levels of service at those intersections would be incredibly lowered and the grades for the levels of service would be much lower than they currently are, even with Mary Star traffic (which WAS NOT) incorporated at the main entrance of Ponte Vista.
It was completely disenguous to not include the view of vehicles entering and exiting the main entrance of Ponte Vista during peak hours when school traffic dramatically increases the counts.
Ponte Vista staff did not show what is actually happening at the intersection of Western Avenue and S. John Montgomery with absolutely zero residents currently living on the Ponte Vista site.
Just imagine what is actually happening now and what might happen with a fully filled (600-student) Mary Star High School AND traffic from 1,950 condos begins?
Mr. Abshez provided me with more than a few low lights, especially when he mentioned the minority report from Councilwoman Janice Hahn's Community Advisory Committee.
I strongly must submit that he mis-charicterized the CAC's position and final report and he provided a stern negative view of the CAC.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn provided some highlights during her testimony to the hearing officer.
I wish she had told the hearing officer that she still supports only R1 remaining the zoning at Ponte Vista, but she was still very critical of the developer and the development.
Councilman Steve Wolowicz from my city of Rancho Palos Verdes spoke to the hearing officer. He provided me and other R.P.V. residents several highlights to the hearing officer.
One low light Councilman Wolowicz repeated was the Planning Departments refusal to call for the recirculation of the DEIR.
Another highlight occured when a representative from Lomita reported that city's opposition to Bob's current plans.
Highlights, low lights, and just plain funny statements came from members of the audience that chose to provide oral testimony to the hearing officer.
Jody showed up with several photos of the Amerigas tanks and the blast zone that would be created if they blew up. Ponte Vista was completely within the blast zone, along with so many other areas and residential units in the nearby areas.
No matter whether Jody's testimony was a highlight or a low light, may not matter. What was important that she showed was more of a fireball and a really huge, Ka-boom!
A supporter of Ponte Vista seemed to announce his support for "Mr. Brisno", perhaps he was nervous. Of course he may not know who Bob Bisno is, just like the fellow who tried to debate me. (What a hopeless, feeble, and not-too-intelligent thing to try to do, if you don't have all your ducks in a row, we think. And this poor fellow had no idea who I am, or how involved I have been, or how much I really know about Ponte Vista)>
I tried to suggest to folks not to enter into debates at the hearing, but not everybody on this planet reads this blog. Is this a highlight or a low light?
The term "single level residences" was used to describe the units proposed at Ponte Vista.
In R1 terms, it means single-story homes, no stairs.
During the applicant's opening remarks, there was no mention of the most important traffic mitigation Bob was originally proposing to fund, traffic signal synchronization.
A highlight, mentioned by others of correct thinking, stated that ATSAC was already being installed at taxpayers' expence and that it would all be completed before Bob ever had the chance to include it as one of his "community benefits".
The crowd was given a wonderful highlight when a representative from the Sierra Club spoke to the hearing officer.
"T" suggested that he didn't care how many units could be built. He DID call for a zoning change at Ponte Vista......to Agriculture ONLY zoning.
I stop here to remind folks that prior to the three large structures were built on Fitness Drive (Tennis Club Condos, Seaport homes...lease to own, and Casa Verde) Mr Walter Lochmann owned a dairy and had milk cows, some steers, and even more than a few cute calves on the site.
Fitness Drive was the old asphalt to dirt route down the hill by the pens and feeding troughs, and all the way down to where the old wooden landing craft from WWII were stored.
Way to go "T"! You brought laughter to the crowd and your idea might not be that bad.
Please no more cows though. Flowers smell so much better.
Getting back into the hearing, a person who lives in downtown San Pedro favored R1.
This person was also critical by the fact that they have been repeatedly approached by some women attempting to get them to sign support for Ponte Vista petitions.
This witty person referred the two, paid, signature gatherers as, "Bisno's working girls."
In fairness, I'd have to give that comment a low light.
Sadly I must report that the worst, most disgusting comment during the hearing, came from one of us.
A speaker stated that every person wearing a yellow Ponte Vista supporters' button was being "paid off" by Bob.
That brought about a great number of hallers, shouts, and foul words and thoughts.
This was the lowest of low lights, in my opinion.
After the comment was made I talked to the person who made it. I told "R" that I didn't necessarily disagree with the basis of his point, but I suggested to him that the words he chose were not too good.
I think "R" could have made a similar statement, choosing better wording, that would have better stated what he wanted to say and something I could agree with.
A correct-thinking individual suggested to the hearing officer that it was poor to support Ponte Vista and attempts to create a "psuedo Tuscani" at Ponte Vista. This was another highlight in my book.
The great Ray Patricio spoke to the hearing and as always, he made everyone crack up with his comments. Ray provides great highlights wherever he speaks and he is a true San Pedro treasure.
Now if he can only get the goats back to Peck Park canyon, that would be even greater.
Remember the CAC? seven members of Ms. Hahn's CAC spoke. A low light was that none of the five members of the CAC that wrote and supported the minority report, which Alan Abshez related to, showed up at the hearing.
Rick, Dick, John, Lucie, Chuck, and Leah spoke at the hearing and that was a real highlight.
I was also a member of the CAC from August, 2006 until I accepted a seat on the Rancho Palos Verdes Traffic Safety Commission and left the CAC in April, 2007. I did however, attend every public meeting of the CAC and several of the closed-door meetings of that group.
Highlights were provided by different folks that said a variety of things like;
"Zoning has to mean something."
"Can you spell s-p-e-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n?"
Terri said "it's like trying to stuff an elephant into a Volkswagen."
There were many others who offered highlights.
Another highlight for me was that many folks who spoke in support of Bob's plans actually had little knowledge of what those plans really are.
There were many supporters that knew what Bob is attempting to do to OUR community, and they were knowledgeable.
There was more of a smattering of the use of the word "affordable" and many of those came from correct thinking speakers who suggested that nobody really knows what that word means when it is applied to units at Ponte Vista.
Hardly any supporter was able to provide the projected price of a 600 square foot loft at Ponte Vista. I know what the projected price currently is. Don't you think supporters of Bob 's plans should know more about all the information than I do? (Bob is claiming that the least-priced unit would be about $330,000, not counting on monthly HOA fees.)
Mr. Steve Afrait, the number one lobbyist in the city of Los Angeles thanked me for providing a description of him for folks (supporters) who have know idea of who he is or what he does for Bob. Steve told me that my identification of him allowed him to keep his jacket off at the hearing in the warm auditorium.
The last speaker at the hearing, on the public side, was former Councilman Rudy Svornich, jr.
He spoke quite well, I was told by a reliable person that for $12,000.00 per month from Bisno Development Company, LLC, Rudy needed to speak well enough to earn his pay.
Alan Abshez, the applicant, ended the evening by having a chance to respond to the comments made during the evening.
Alan provided a very low low lights when he opined that perhaps the CAC was not the correct way to proceed, almost two years ago.
Alan needs to be reminded by Bob that it was Bob and Councilwoman Hahns' collaborations that brought about the CAC and that Bob funded the meeting spaces, and yes, even the dinners for CAC members and other staff members.
If, in perfect 20/20 hindsight, the CAC might not have been a good idea, especially when the final report did not support what Bob wants. it too bad, get over it!
If blaming the creation of a group led to findings the applicant didn't like, then why on earth was Bob unwilling to work proactively with the members of the CAC, to come up with something a majority of members could vote to support?
Bob can't have it both ways (like many people commented he has had up until now). Either you support the majority findings of the group you had created and fed, or you keep silent, lest you are found to be speaking out of both sides of your mouth and needing to downplay the findings of a group you had created.
A real highlight found just over five hours after it began, was that it finally came to and end.
A giant highlight was all the good folks from the Planning Department that administered the hearing. Everyone for that group was extremely cordial and they all worked very hard to provide a truly great hearing atmosphere and setting.
My hat comes off for all those in the Planning Depart that stayed until after 10:00 PM. We all need to know that those folks still had to be transported back to their own homes and hardly any individual who came to the hearing from the Planning Department lives in San Pedro, eastern Rancho Palos Verdes or other nearby areas.
They all had a ways to travel, after 10:00 PM. I appreciate their services.
A low light light for local San Pedro residents on both sides of the issue was that my mug appeared on area cable channels twice this week.
NOISE members spent 8 hours waiting to speak at the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, about plans to build a new high school campus on the Upper Reservation of fort MacArthur. Our faces appeared live and on tape on the LAUSD T.V. Channel.
The public hearing was presented live and also taped for San Pedro channel 35. Four members of NOISE, who are also members of R Neighborhoods Are 1, appeared at the two televized events.
A highlight at the public hearing was for me, seeing how approachable Bob was when he was not sitting in the front row. He engaged supporters, naturally, and he also was polite to those of us on the correct-thinking side of the Ponte Vista issue.
Also attending the hearing was one of two financial managers Bisno Development has been working with, from the primary financial institution that is expected to fund the development of the site, once entitlements are granted.
Entitlements are specific guidelines for each subdivision of the site, and provides the reciepient of those entitlements the right to build structures on each parcel, approved of by the placement of specific plan zoning for a property.
Bob Bisno is currently entitled to build single-family, detached residential units on lots of not less than 5,000 square feet.
Bob, with the specific plan zoning he is seeking, would be able to construct structures allowed for each separate subdivided parcel at Ponte Vista.
Bob's application is to subdivide the site into 33 lots where specific numbers of structures and amenities is alloted for each lot.
Whether entitlements remain as they currently are, or changed as a result of a zoning change, the person or group holding entitlements to the lots or parcels has the right to sell those entitlements.
Bob has financial managers who represent a major financial institution that seems currently willing and able to fund entitlements that may be granted in the future, at Ponte Vista.
As I was able to confirm this during the hearing, it is up to each individual to determine on their own, if this is a highlight or a low light.
Right now I won't opine whether it is a highlight or a low light for me.
Bob can build right now (according to the current zoning), he can sell right now, he could build according to future approved entitlements, he could sell future entitlements approved of for the site, without developing the lots.
A real highlight for me that happened beginning at the end of the hearing was that I can now take a break from dealing as much as I have during the last several weeks, on the issue.
I can contend that this highlight is a highlight for everyone on both sides of the issue.
HOWEVER, since the written comment period has been extended until July 11, correct thinking individuals are strongly encouraged to continue to write comments to the hearing officer. The longer the better in my book.
Also, correct-thinking individuals are not limited in the number of sets of comments they can create and send in as part of their overall testimony concerning Ponte Vista.
I'll have a little more information about the written comments I am submitting, after July 11.
Thank you so very much to all the correct-thinking folks that wore the real buttons and spoke their own minds at the hearing. We all heard "talking points" from only the project's supportive side and our side created so many sets of diverse, interesting, and intelligent oral testimony I can only determine that these were very high highlights.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Some Thoughts Before the Hearing.
Here hopefully, are my last notes prior to the public hearing Thursday evening.
Please remember to pack folding, comfortable chairs. You may not get or want a seat inside the auditorium.
Please wear clothing that can be layered. It may be warm at the beginning of the hearing, but if and when the fog rolls in, the temperature will change.
It is requested that you visit the R1 table to pick up an R1 button if you don't have one already. We need to show the hearing officer, the press, Councilwoman Janice Hahn and especially Bob, that there are many many of us willing to wear our opposition to his plans.
Even though you may not want R1 remaining at Ponte Vista and you want a much lower number of units than 1,950, you can show OUR community that you stand opposed to Bob's weapon of mass development and you support maintaining the quality of life so many of us are trying to keep, in OUR community.
There will be representatives of the press attending the hearing. If you do speak during the hearing, you may also want to speak to a reporter or three and provide them with how a huge Ponte Vista project will negatively affect you and your family, personally.
Know that Bob is providing a free meal at the Bath House in order to try and gather more supporters of his plans. Please be extra nice to the vast majority of them because they actually have no real idea of what Bob's plans are. We know this because of the meetings held over a year's time where ill informed or uninformed "supporters" demonstrated their lack of knowledge about the project.
It was pitiful at times listening to folks who seemed to have been plucked out of their community, transported to San Pedro, and given meals and/or free goodies to speak in support of Bob's plans, even though they didn't know what they were in the first place.
R Neighborhoods Are 1 will be bringing out their requests for contributions to the legal defense fund that is needed for the future.
One way you can help is by bringing or offering pennies for every time a supporter of Bob's plans uses the word, "affordable". I think if a penny per person was donated for every time "affordable" is mentioned at the hearing, R Neighborhoods Are 1 should be able to completely fund the future legal fees and have enough left over to help contribute to worthy causes such that the cure for Cancer might be found, decades sooner.
Please, please don't try to argue with any of Bob's supporters. It is a no-win situation for all of us.
Not only would you be attempting to argue with someone who does not have the fraction of real facts you have, but they will probably become emotional when they realize they can't win any argument against a more-informed person who opposes Bob's plans.
Please be very prepared to stay late. There will be more than many persons who should make comments to the hearing officer and your comments are vital to all of us.
You may find that when the representatives of the Unions who have signed agreements with Bob, that most probably not worth the ink they are printed with leave, then Union members who know practically nothing accept what their Union Officers tell them, will also leave and go home to other communities.
That should clear out a whole bunch of supporters' seating and you may find room to sit inside.
Please do not mention Jim Jones or offer Kool-aid to a supporter of Bob's plans. They might have already drank the drink at the dinner as they swallow the lines suggested to be said, by members of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team.
Listen carefully to what some of the more prominent supporters of Bob's plans say to the hearing officer. Don't expect them to flub their lines because there was a rehearsal of what is going to be said by some supporters, several weeks ago.
If you want to know what Bob looks like, but haven't seen a picture of him, he has short hair that is somewhat curly. He is also just a wee bit shorter than I am and I am only 5' 7" tall. He is much less round than I am and he does have an easy smile that I don't have.
If you want to see who the largest lobbyist in the City of Los Angeles is, you may see a gentleman much larger than me, wearing a coat and tie. Mr. Steve Afriat does really big business being a lobbyist in the city and he will probably be there because he has attended much less important Advisory Committee meetings in the past.
Another Bisno player you may see is Rudy Svornich. I mean former L.A. City Councilman Rudy Svornich. Many San Pedrans should have no problem recognizing him.
You should probably be able to see and hear San Pedro's honorary mayor, Mr. Joe Donato.
I am glad my city has a real mayor that doesn't try and sell out his community by supporting an out of town developer.
If you recognize, hear, or see Ms. Linda D'Ambrosi speaking in support of Bob's plans, you may wish to remember that she does not live in San Pedro and her now-infamous comedic line; "Bob Bisno is going to save San Pedro" is already the stuff of legends.
I don't think we will get the wonderful opportunity of hearing or seeing the great, Mr. John Oguin, the Man of the Century who's name graces the auditorium the hearing will be held at. John was a very early signer of the R1 petition and I am more than honored to have known our best member of our community since I was a toddler.
If John is present, we will be in the company of true selfless greatness and able to claim that we were near one of the greatest gentleman this country has shared for more than five generations.
Please go to the hearing knowing that absolutely NOTHING has been formally approved of for Ponte Vista EXCEPT that the current zoning for the site is R1-1XL and OS1-1XL.
The current zoning, on which Bob could start building houses on, very soon, allows for single-family housing on lots of not less than 5,000 square feet, and being up to two-stories tall, but not taller than 30 feet in height. It also means that the open spaces on the property cannot have structures built taller than 30 feet in height. It means there can't be a basketball hoop 31 feet off of the ground.
Bob has been allowed to build according to the current zoning practically since he bought the property. He just doesn't want to.
If there is no parking available in the parking areas close to the auditorium, you may want to drive out towards the pier and look for parking on the right, close to the sand along the Pacific Ocean.
You may also decide to look for parking close to the hotel at the Cabrillo Marina and walk over to the auditorium.
Parking for the hearing is free. You should probably try to arrive by 4:00 to have a better chance of finding a space closer to the auditorium.
There will already be cars and possibly buses at the lot that are being utilized by supporters of Bob's plans who are attending the dinner at the Bath House.
If you live in Rancho Palos Verdes but do not know any City Council members of your city, Councilman Steve Wolowicz has confirmed to me that he has prepared comments to present to the hearing officer. Please watch to see what Councilman Wolowicz looks like when his name is mentioned.
Councilman Wolowicz is approachable if you have questions about R.P.V.
Also for R.P.V. residents, Mr. Kit Fox, an associate planner from the R.P.V. Planning Department has confirmed his appearance. If you have received the Final Environmental Impact Report for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro project, you should read comments created by Mr. Fox. They are some of the best set of comments to the Draft E.I.R. that have been written.
If you are an opponent of Bob's plans and the owner of Taxco speaks at the hearing, please be very kind to this nice fellow and let him know whether you intend to visit his restaurant any time in the future. His restaurant is very close to my home and Terri and I have eaten at Taxco many times, in the past.
Please be friendly to any and all business owners that speak in support of Bob's plans. You may wish to advise them whether you intend on dealing with their business in the future.
If you wish to say "hi" to me, but don't know what I look like, I am the large, okay, really large fellow wearing the "Major Ranting Elitist" button, but not wearing a red R1 button. I've made more than a few of them for the hearing and I want more folks to wear them than there may be available.
You may also wish to look for one of the odd buttons that don't look like other buttons. They are of no monetary value and they never will become a collector's item, but they are fun, none the less. I think.
You may also see some people wearing No High School 15 buttons, along with R1 buttons. If you do not support the construction of a new high school on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur, you may want to talk to one of these individuals to inquire how you can learn more about their issue.
If you see anyone wearing a VDONAC button that opposed the construction of condos on the former site of McCowan's Market, please give them a great smile and a hail and hearty "congratulations". Their cause won final implementation this week and their quest to oppose another out-of-town developer who wanted to build condos where they don't belong, was completely successful!
Vista del Oro Neigbors Against Condos has shown OUR community that it is not impossible to stand up to an over-developer and WIN! We should appreciate their struggles and relish with them their victory. They have shown us that the "impossible" is not impossible and we have learned so much from them.
If anyone else has suggestions for the hearing, please comment to this post.
Terri and I are off to walk Cookie around an LAUSD school situated within Rancho Palos Verdes.
Be well, have as much fun as you can have at the hearing and please know how important it is to OUR community that you participate in the hearing and let the hearing officer, the Planning Department, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, and more importantly, the rest of OUR community that your quality of life matters and you will fight to maintain the quality of life for all residents of OUR community, by providing your comments that can help heal the division that has been caused by Bob Bisno and the supporters of his plans for Ponte Vista.
Please remember to pack folding, comfortable chairs. You may not get or want a seat inside the auditorium.
Please wear clothing that can be layered. It may be warm at the beginning of the hearing, but if and when the fog rolls in, the temperature will change.
It is requested that you visit the R1 table to pick up an R1 button if you don't have one already. We need to show the hearing officer, the press, Councilwoman Janice Hahn and especially Bob, that there are many many of us willing to wear our opposition to his plans.
Even though you may not want R1 remaining at Ponte Vista and you want a much lower number of units than 1,950, you can show OUR community that you stand opposed to Bob's weapon of mass development and you support maintaining the quality of life so many of us are trying to keep, in OUR community.
There will be representatives of the press attending the hearing. If you do speak during the hearing, you may also want to speak to a reporter or three and provide them with how a huge Ponte Vista project will negatively affect you and your family, personally.
Know that Bob is providing a free meal at the Bath House in order to try and gather more supporters of his plans. Please be extra nice to the vast majority of them because they actually have no real idea of what Bob's plans are. We know this because of the meetings held over a year's time where ill informed or uninformed "supporters" demonstrated their lack of knowledge about the project.
It was pitiful at times listening to folks who seemed to have been plucked out of their community, transported to San Pedro, and given meals and/or free goodies to speak in support of Bob's plans, even though they didn't know what they were in the first place.
R Neighborhoods Are 1 will be bringing out their requests for contributions to the legal defense fund that is needed for the future.
One way you can help is by bringing or offering pennies for every time a supporter of Bob's plans uses the word, "affordable". I think if a penny per person was donated for every time "affordable" is mentioned at the hearing, R Neighborhoods Are 1 should be able to completely fund the future legal fees and have enough left over to help contribute to worthy causes such that the cure for Cancer might be found, decades sooner.
Please, please don't try to argue with any of Bob's supporters. It is a no-win situation for all of us.
Not only would you be attempting to argue with someone who does not have the fraction of real facts you have, but they will probably become emotional when they realize they can't win any argument against a more-informed person who opposes Bob's plans.
Please be very prepared to stay late. There will be more than many persons who should make comments to the hearing officer and your comments are vital to all of us.
You may find that when the representatives of the Unions who have signed agreements with Bob, that most probably not worth the ink they are printed with leave, then Union members who know practically nothing accept what their Union Officers tell them, will also leave and go home to other communities.
That should clear out a whole bunch of supporters' seating and you may find room to sit inside.
Please do not mention Jim Jones or offer Kool-aid to a supporter of Bob's plans. They might have already drank the drink at the dinner as they swallow the lines suggested to be said, by members of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team.
Listen carefully to what some of the more prominent supporters of Bob's plans say to the hearing officer. Don't expect them to flub their lines because there was a rehearsal of what is going to be said by some supporters, several weeks ago.
If you want to know what Bob looks like, but haven't seen a picture of him, he has short hair that is somewhat curly. He is also just a wee bit shorter than I am and I am only 5' 7" tall. He is much less round than I am and he does have an easy smile that I don't have.
If you want to see who the largest lobbyist in the City of Los Angeles is, you may see a gentleman much larger than me, wearing a coat and tie. Mr. Steve Afriat does really big business being a lobbyist in the city and he will probably be there because he has attended much less important Advisory Committee meetings in the past.
Another Bisno player you may see is Rudy Svornich. I mean former L.A. City Councilman Rudy Svornich. Many San Pedrans should have no problem recognizing him.
You should probably be able to see and hear San Pedro's honorary mayor, Mr. Joe Donato.
I am glad my city has a real mayor that doesn't try and sell out his community by supporting an out of town developer.
If you recognize, hear, or see Ms. Linda D'Ambrosi speaking in support of Bob's plans, you may wish to remember that she does not live in San Pedro and her now-infamous comedic line; "Bob Bisno is going to save San Pedro" is already the stuff of legends.
I don't think we will get the wonderful opportunity of hearing or seeing the great, Mr. John Oguin, the Man of the Century who's name graces the auditorium the hearing will be held at. John was a very early signer of the R1 petition and I am more than honored to have known our best member of our community since I was a toddler.
If John is present, we will be in the company of true selfless greatness and able to claim that we were near one of the greatest gentleman this country has shared for more than five generations.
Please go to the hearing knowing that absolutely NOTHING has been formally approved of for Ponte Vista EXCEPT that the current zoning for the site is R1-1XL and OS1-1XL.
The current zoning, on which Bob could start building houses on, very soon, allows for single-family housing on lots of not less than 5,000 square feet, and being up to two-stories tall, but not taller than 30 feet in height. It also means that the open spaces on the property cannot have structures built taller than 30 feet in height. It means there can't be a basketball hoop 31 feet off of the ground.
Bob has been allowed to build according to the current zoning practically since he bought the property. He just doesn't want to.
If there is no parking available in the parking areas close to the auditorium, you may want to drive out towards the pier and look for parking on the right, close to the sand along the Pacific Ocean.
You may also decide to look for parking close to the hotel at the Cabrillo Marina and walk over to the auditorium.
Parking for the hearing is free. You should probably try to arrive by 4:00 to have a better chance of finding a space closer to the auditorium.
There will already be cars and possibly buses at the lot that are being utilized by supporters of Bob's plans who are attending the dinner at the Bath House.
If you live in Rancho Palos Verdes but do not know any City Council members of your city, Councilman Steve Wolowicz has confirmed to me that he has prepared comments to present to the hearing officer. Please watch to see what Councilman Wolowicz looks like when his name is mentioned.
Councilman Wolowicz is approachable if you have questions about R.P.V.
Also for R.P.V. residents, Mr. Kit Fox, an associate planner from the R.P.V. Planning Department has confirmed his appearance. If you have received the Final Environmental Impact Report for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro project, you should read comments created by Mr. Fox. They are some of the best set of comments to the Draft E.I.R. that have been written.
If you are an opponent of Bob's plans and the owner of Taxco speaks at the hearing, please be very kind to this nice fellow and let him know whether you intend to visit his restaurant any time in the future. His restaurant is very close to my home and Terri and I have eaten at Taxco many times, in the past.
Please be friendly to any and all business owners that speak in support of Bob's plans. You may wish to advise them whether you intend on dealing with their business in the future.
If you wish to say "hi" to me, but don't know what I look like, I am the large, okay, really large fellow wearing the "Major Ranting Elitist" button, but not wearing a red R1 button. I've made more than a few of them for the hearing and I want more folks to wear them than there may be available.
You may also wish to look for one of the odd buttons that don't look like other buttons. They are of no monetary value and they never will become a collector's item, but they are fun, none the less. I think.
You may also see some people wearing No High School 15 buttons, along with R1 buttons. If you do not support the construction of a new high school on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur, you may want to talk to one of these individuals to inquire how you can learn more about their issue.
If you see anyone wearing a VDONAC button that opposed the construction of condos on the former site of McCowan's Market, please give them a great smile and a hail and hearty "congratulations". Their cause won final implementation this week and their quest to oppose another out-of-town developer who wanted to build condos where they don't belong, was completely successful!
Vista del Oro Neigbors Against Condos has shown OUR community that it is not impossible to stand up to an over-developer and WIN! We should appreciate their struggles and relish with them their victory. They have shown us that the "impossible" is not impossible and we have learned so much from them.
If anyone else has suggestions for the hearing, please comment to this post.
Terri and I are off to walk Cookie around an LAUSD school situated within Rancho Palos Verdes.
Be well, have as much fun as you can have at the hearing and please know how important it is to OUR community that you participate in the hearing and let the hearing officer, the Planning Department, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, and more importantly, the rest of OUR community that your quality of life matters and you will fight to maintain the quality of life for all residents of OUR community, by providing your comments that can help heal the division that has been caused by Bob Bisno and the supporters of his plans for Ponte Vista.
Competing Fliers
You don't really need to enlarge this one
Go ahead and click over this one to enlarge.When the latest flier came out from the Outreach Team, I received Emails, phone calls, and verbal comments about it.
Lo and behold, my two very good friends, Sven Ludvquist O'Brien and Nels, McGook Hoopnoodle also created a flier in opposition to the latest Ponte Vista flier.
Since so many people wanted me to show the comparison between the Ponte Vista flier and the flyer from the team of O'Brien/Hoopnoodle, I have placed both of them on this post.
Sometimes parody provides comedy in a situation that is overly filled with frustration with Bob and the continuing division the Ponte Vista issue brings to OUR community.
Interesting and Funny San Pedro Magazine for July
San Pedro Magazine had its July, 2008 edition hit my driveway on June 26.
It was not only a somewhat informative edition, but there was no lack of my kind of humor in it.
Josh Stecker, the publisher of San Pedro Magazine did a not-so-great job of trying to defend his actions of including a letter to the editor for Mr. Santich in the very same edition where Mr. Santich's photo adorned the cover and within the cover story of the magazine.
Most folks in San Pedro aren't as concerned with Ms. Hahn's dealings with south-central gangs, as they are with many, many other more important Harbor area issues.
Josh did a less-than-bright thing which looked to many people as he was endorsing Mr. Santich's position by including the letter in the same edition Mr. Santich was so prominently featured.
No amount of explaining over the phone, via Email, or within the July edition is going to get folks from thinking Josh did a less-than-bright thing.
But, a brilliant thing Josh has done is to bring onboard Mr. Steve Marconi. His wonderful column which takes to task Ponte Vista once again, provides an avenue for Mr. Marconi that was lost when More San Pedro was eliminated
On the back cover of San Pedro Magazine is a full-page ad for Ponte Vista. the add features a (smug) smiling Dave Stanovich from Eastview Little League.
Note to Mr. Stanovich, the recent actions and 'agreement' by the management of Eastview Little League has nailed the coffin shut on future hopes of building real permanent fields in San Pedro once the Ponte Vista deal falls through, as long as any member of the current management team of EVLL remains.
I bet Dave and others have heard comments like that since their support for Bob's plans was recently given.
Dave and others, NOTHING has been officially decided concerning Ponte Vista at San Pedro.
You have mortgaged EVLL's future on a dream that may, more than likely will never happen, you swallowed the Kool-Aid Bob finally offered, and you sold out about 600 families and the rest of OUR community.
Getting back to pure fun, Linda "Bob Bisno is going to save San Pedro" D'Ambrosi was featured with her new Smart Fortwo car.
I thought real estate agents used large cars to impress clients, but Linda "Bob Bisno is going to save San Pedro" Di Ambrosi doesn't seem to continue to believe that.
Maybe she is an agent interested in marketing to one individual at a time, but more than likely, she isn't
An error was made on page 31 of the edition when it included "Thelma Zuanich Zankich is a lifelong San Pedran". Not only is Ms. Zankich not dead (we don't know if she will really be a lifelong resident until she dies) it seems she is now not entitled to move out of San Pedro.
This is just another thing I think is funny, like when people state "I have been a San Pedro resident all my life." No they haven't, they are not dead yet.
Richard Pawlowski brought up an issues I have been supporting for several years now.
He thinks an Aircraft Carrier would be good for our port, our community and be a welcome addition for all of us and for tourists, too.
I doubt highly that the Port of L.A. could welcome a full-size, 1,000 foot long carrier.
But there are assault carriers which had helicopters and Harrier jump jets on the flight deck and hangar deck, and they also had amphibious craft stored in the hull, with lots an lots of U.S. Marines ready to storm ashore for our country.
A smaller carrier is the Iwo Jima class might fit quite nicely in the Fishing Boat slip, next to Ports o' Call, I think.
a smaller carrier still has the flight deck space to provide static displays of all types of military aircraft and it would attract local residents to become more involved and supportive of our port.
The port and community could see increased spending by locals and tourists in an area that needs the money.
Perhaps if a smaller surplus carrier was donated by the U.S. Navy, it could be enhanced by the moving of the Lane Victory, which is already a really great attraction in the harbor.
The July edition carried an article, with photos, of a film that was shot partially in San Pedro.
Hey Josh and just about everybody else, what about "Some Kind of Wonderful"? If you have spent any time in San Pedro you must take a gander at that flick. If you graduated from San Pedro High School, that movie is filled with scenes of that campus.
San Pedro has been in so many films and T.V. shows, "The Streets of San Francisco" was filled with more streets of San Pedro than it was filled with streets "where little cable cars travel halfway to the stars."
According to a manager at Marie Calendar's, there is little chance the restaurant will move to downtown San Pedro at this point.
If you want to learn the difference between Buono and Buono, you can find out the differences in the pronunciation by talking to Frank or George, or talking to Phil or Gary, or Clare.
One Buono family pronounces their name similar to how the late Sonny Bono pronounced that last name.
The other Buono family pronounces it name with a long "u" similar to "b-you, know"
But a Papadakis is a Papadakis whether it is for a member of the L.A. County School Board, a restaurant owner, or a photographer.
And for folks who still don't have a clue, Angie is NOT married to John or Taso, but they sure are all quite related.
It's going to be interesting reading the August 2008 edition of San Pedro Magazine. If you want to sound off about the public hearing and find your letter in the August edition, please write what you want to write and submit it to Josh very soon after today, Thursday June 26.
It was not only a somewhat informative edition, but there was no lack of my kind of humor in it.
Josh Stecker, the publisher of San Pedro Magazine did a not-so-great job of trying to defend his actions of including a letter to the editor for Mr. Santich in the very same edition where Mr. Santich's photo adorned the cover and within the cover story of the magazine.
Most folks in San Pedro aren't as concerned with Ms. Hahn's dealings with south-central gangs, as they are with many, many other more important Harbor area issues.
Josh did a less-than-bright thing which looked to many people as he was endorsing Mr. Santich's position by including the letter in the same edition Mr. Santich was so prominently featured.
No amount of explaining over the phone, via Email, or within the July edition is going to get folks from thinking Josh did a less-than-bright thing.
But, a brilliant thing Josh has done is to bring onboard Mr. Steve Marconi. His wonderful column which takes to task Ponte Vista once again, provides an avenue for Mr. Marconi that was lost when More San Pedro was eliminated
On the back cover of San Pedro Magazine is a full-page ad for Ponte Vista. the add features a (smug) smiling Dave Stanovich from Eastview Little League.
Note to Mr. Stanovich, the recent actions and 'agreement' by the management of Eastview Little League has nailed the coffin shut on future hopes of building real permanent fields in San Pedro once the Ponte Vista deal falls through, as long as any member of the current management team of EVLL remains.
I bet Dave and others have heard comments like that since their support for Bob's plans was recently given.
Dave and others, NOTHING has been officially decided concerning Ponte Vista at San Pedro.
You have mortgaged EVLL's future on a dream that may, more than likely will never happen, you swallowed the Kool-Aid Bob finally offered, and you sold out about 600 families and the rest of OUR community.
Getting back to pure fun, Linda "Bob Bisno is going to save San Pedro" D'Ambrosi was featured with her new Smart Fortwo car.
I thought real estate agents used large cars to impress clients, but Linda "Bob Bisno is going to save San Pedro" Di Ambrosi doesn't seem to continue to believe that.
Maybe she is an agent interested in marketing to one individual at a time, but more than likely, she isn't
An error was made on page 31 of the edition when it included "Thelma Zuanich Zankich is a lifelong San Pedran". Not only is Ms. Zankich not dead (we don't know if she will really be a lifelong resident until she dies) it seems she is now not entitled to move out of San Pedro.
This is just another thing I think is funny, like when people state "I have been a San Pedro resident all my life." No they haven't, they are not dead yet.
Richard Pawlowski brought up an issues I have been supporting for several years now.
He thinks an Aircraft Carrier would be good for our port, our community and be a welcome addition for all of us and for tourists, too.
I doubt highly that the Port of L.A. could welcome a full-size, 1,000 foot long carrier.
But there are assault carriers which had helicopters and Harrier jump jets on the flight deck and hangar deck, and they also had amphibious craft stored in the hull, with lots an lots of U.S. Marines ready to storm ashore for our country.
A smaller carrier is the Iwo Jima class might fit quite nicely in the Fishing Boat slip, next to Ports o' Call, I think.
a smaller carrier still has the flight deck space to provide static displays of all types of military aircraft and it would attract local residents to become more involved and supportive of our port.
The port and community could see increased spending by locals and tourists in an area that needs the money.
Perhaps if a smaller surplus carrier was donated by the U.S. Navy, it could be enhanced by the moving of the Lane Victory, which is already a really great attraction in the harbor.
The July edition carried an article, with photos, of a film that was shot partially in San Pedro.
Hey Josh and just about everybody else, what about "Some Kind of Wonderful"? If you have spent any time in San Pedro you must take a gander at that flick. If you graduated from San Pedro High School, that movie is filled with scenes of that campus.
San Pedro has been in so many films and T.V. shows, "The Streets of San Francisco" was filled with more streets of San Pedro than it was filled with streets "where little cable cars travel halfway to the stars."
According to a manager at Marie Calendar's, there is little chance the restaurant will move to downtown San Pedro at this point.
If you want to learn the difference between Buono and Buono, you can find out the differences in the pronunciation by talking to Frank or George, or talking to Phil or Gary, or Clare.
One Buono family pronounces their name similar to how the late Sonny Bono pronounced that last name.
The other Buono family pronounces it name with a long "u" similar to "b-you, know"
But a Papadakis is a Papadakis whether it is for a member of the L.A. County School Board, a restaurant owner, or a photographer.
And for folks who still don't have a clue, Angie is NOT married to John or Taso, but they sure are all quite related.
It's going to be interesting reading the August 2008 edition of San Pedro Magazine. If you want to sound off about the public hearing and find your letter in the August edition, please write what you want to write and submit it to Josh very soon after today, Thursday June 26.
LAUSD is Using Tactics From Bob's Playbook
Plans for a new high school campus on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur have changed, yet again.
In moves straight out of Bob's playbook on how to attempt to gain support for ill-fated over development, the Facilities Division and others within LAUSD are looking more closer to being as desperate as Bob seems to be in attracting support for something that isn't wanted in OUR community.
Please head on over to: http://sanpedroissuestoponder.blogspot.com/ which is another blog I am currently building posts for. You can get the skinny on what the local area Superintendent, and her subordinates are attempting to do to OUR community and how she is willing to offer close to the kitchen sink to get the new campus approved.
In moves straight out of Bob's playbook on how to attempt to gain support for ill-fated over development, the Facilities Division and others within LAUSD are looking more closer to being as desperate as Bob seems to be in attracting support for something that isn't wanted in OUR community.
Please head on over to: http://sanpedroissuestoponder.blogspot.com/ which is another blog I am currently building posts for. You can get the skinny on what the local area Superintendent, and her subordinates are attempting to do to OUR community and how she is willing to offer close to the kitchen sink to get the new campus approved.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Written Comment Period Extended Plus Helpful Information
Click over each illustration to enlarge.The period of time to submit written comments to the Hearing Officer for the upcoming event has been extended until the close of business on July 11, 2008.
You are encouraged to provide your personal comments on the facts as you know them, how the quality of life would be impacted for yourself, you family, your friends, and your neighbors, and how you feel about Bob promising many "community benefits" he may very well not provide.
You may send your comments and written testimony via Email. Please address your Email to:
david.olivo@lacity.org
Please reference CPC 2006-8043-GPA-ZC-SP-DA, VTT-63399, ENV-2005-4516-EIR
in your Email or snail mail written comments.
If you are sending comments in via the postal system, please address your envelope(s) as follows:
Los Angeles City Planning Department
Community Planning Bureau West/Coastal Unit
200 N. Spring Street, Room 621
Los Angeles, Ca.
If you haven't filled out one of the thousands of yellow or orange cards that have been circulating around town, you can find a copy to upload on a post further down on this blog. There is still time to submit the cards that state that you do not want the property at Ponte Vista at San Pedro to be subdivide that property. The card also acknowledges that you DO NOT want the community plan amended and that you support maintaining the current zoning at the Ponte Vista site.
Your help is still greatly needed.
If anyone who is coming to the public hearing has a hand-held counter, we need to know how many times supporters of Bob's plans for Ponte Vista use the word "affordable".
Please remember, whether Bob claims he is providing "work force" housing or any other type of units, he has NEVER waivered on the concept that he is going to sell units at "market-rate" prices whatever they are, IF he actually has the property developed.
Thank you for your continued viewing of this blog and other blogs I support.
Yet Another Flier
I was taking a break from making button after button after button and I checked my Email.
I found a flier from the Outreach Team of Ponte Vista attached to an Email and I just could not resist having a little fun. (See below)
Click to enlarge
Now I really must get back to pressing out more buttons.
I found a flier from the Outreach Team of Ponte Vista attached to an Email and I just could not resist having a little fun. (See below)
Click to enlargeNow I really must get back to pressing out more buttons.
Monday, June 23, 2008
One Over Development Curbed in San Pedro
Today, the Q Qualification Classification ordinance, passed by the Los Angeles City Council, has finished its course on the former McCowan's Market site.
Three lots that made up the footprint of the former store at the intersection of 20Th Street and Walker Avenue had their zoning officially changed from C1-1XL to QC1-1XL
The new zoning means that only single-family, detached residential units can be built IF residential units are built on the lots.
This is a great victory for the Vista del Oro Neighbors Against Condos (VDONAC) organization and for all of OUR community that seeks to quell over development in the San Pedro area.
Of course the properties' owner, Mr. Mike Rosenthal can sue the City of Los Angeles. To that I say, "not much luck".
I know that the victory by the group and neighbors who live in the area or shopped at McCowan's Market is great, but it doesn't compare in size to what so many of us are facing regarding Ponte Vista.
I'll take any size victory I can get as long as it comes with future victories that may come to pass in the future.
What happened today also gives hope to many who feel or have felt that they can do nothing to slow or stop over development in OUR community.
See folks, please don't believe that Councilwoman Janice Hahn can't do anything about out of town developers who believe that they know more about what is best for OUR community than we do.
Ms. Hahn learned of the plight of her constituents and she and her staff became quite involved, very quickly, in finding ways to help the neighbors, the neighborhood, and OUR community.
Currently, Ms. Hahn continues to find no reason to change the existing zoning at Ponte Vista at San Pedro. We all need to support Ms. Hahn's current stance and recognize that she and her staff really are looking out for the residents and not just businesses and developers.
Now I know that supporters of Bob's current plans are going to state that there are more supporters for his plans than there are those objecting to those plans.
You may see lots of supporters attending the dinner at the Bath House on June 26. I think you will see folks you recognize and many, many people who you may thing don't even live in San Pedro.
I love the timing of the of the implementation of the ordinance. I am sure glad it didn't come on June 27th.
Let us go forward with our fight against the weapon of mass development that is Ponte Vista, knowing that regular residents can stand up to developers and WIN?
It has happened with the McCowan's site. I think it MUST happen with the Ponte Vista site.
______________________________________________________
And now for a little humor.
Very recently I had a conversation with a senior member of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team.
In our conversation this individual stated that Ponte Vista would not be built at R1. I immediately stated that it would not have 1,950 condominiums either. The individual on the Outreach Team then said; "well I know".
So it seems a senior member of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team has stated to me for the first time that they know Bob won't get 1,950-condos approved of, at the 61.53 acre site.
I am glad I had a pen in my hand and paper at the ready to record the quote accurately.
Do I know that Ponte Vista won't have its current zoning remaining when all is said and done at the L.A. City Council level? I am not willing to admit that BUT, I have written of my "dream" of having 1,080-units built at the site.
I must to continue to demand that the current zoning at the site remain because Bob has not seen fit to lower the number of units he is currently wishing to build to any sort of number of units that can be reasonably discussed, nor has he been willing to actively seek compromises in the number of units with Ms. Hahn's Community Advisory Committee or members of the Rudderless Steering Committee of R Neighborhoods Are 1, or any other group of opponents of his current plans, I strongly feel.
__________________________________________________
Both supporters of Bob's current plans and folks opposed to them have been working with important individuals to attempt to allow for the best seating possible, at the public hearing.
I don't have any new information to report, but it appears that both sides may be allowed a certain number of seats within the auditorium and that there may be a way of handing out seating assignments just prior to the hearing.
I am sure that there will be a number of individuals and groups selected by the Ponte Vista side, to address the Hearing Officer. That may also be the case with the opposition groups.
With only about 245 permanent seats in the auditorium, it might even be more comfortable just to sit outside with a comfy chair, some cool beverages (no Kool-Aid for the opposition, please) and among friends and fellow community members where peaceful discussions can take place while listening to the hearing over loud speakers.
You may want to wear clothing that can be layered. It should go from being pleasantly warm to unpleasantly cool, with fog, outside the auditorium.
Congratulations to VDONAC, the greater Vista del Oro area and its residents. Congratulations also go out to the rest of OUR community who loved McCowan's and have over development
Three lots that made up the footprint of the former store at the intersection of 20Th Street and Walker Avenue had their zoning officially changed from C1-1XL to QC1-1XL
The new zoning means that only single-family, detached residential units can be built IF residential units are built on the lots.
This is a great victory for the Vista del Oro Neighbors Against Condos (VDONAC) organization and for all of OUR community that seeks to quell over development in the San Pedro area.
Of course the properties' owner, Mr. Mike Rosenthal can sue the City of Los Angeles. To that I say, "not much luck".
I know that the victory by the group and neighbors who live in the area or shopped at McCowan's Market is great, but it doesn't compare in size to what so many of us are facing regarding Ponte Vista.
I'll take any size victory I can get as long as it comes with future victories that may come to pass in the future.
What happened today also gives hope to many who feel or have felt that they can do nothing to slow or stop over development in OUR community.
See folks, please don't believe that Councilwoman Janice Hahn can't do anything about out of town developers who believe that they know more about what is best for OUR community than we do.
Ms. Hahn learned of the plight of her constituents and she and her staff became quite involved, very quickly, in finding ways to help the neighbors, the neighborhood, and OUR community.
Currently, Ms. Hahn continues to find no reason to change the existing zoning at Ponte Vista at San Pedro. We all need to support Ms. Hahn's current stance and recognize that she and her staff really are looking out for the residents and not just businesses and developers.
Now I know that supporters of Bob's current plans are going to state that there are more supporters for his plans than there are those objecting to those plans.
You may see lots of supporters attending the dinner at the Bath House on June 26. I think you will see folks you recognize and many, many people who you may thing don't even live in San Pedro.
I love the timing of the of the implementation of the ordinance. I am sure glad it didn't come on June 27th.
Let us go forward with our fight against the weapon of mass development that is Ponte Vista, knowing that regular residents can stand up to developers and WIN?
It has happened with the McCowan's site. I think it MUST happen with the Ponte Vista site.
______________________________________________________
And now for a little humor.
Very recently I had a conversation with a senior member of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team.
In our conversation this individual stated that Ponte Vista would not be built at R1. I immediately stated that it would not have 1,950 condominiums either. The individual on the Outreach Team then said; "well I know".
So it seems a senior member of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team has stated to me for the first time that they know Bob won't get 1,950-condos approved of, at the 61.53 acre site.
I am glad I had a pen in my hand and paper at the ready to record the quote accurately.
Do I know that Ponte Vista won't have its current zoning remaining when all is said and done at the L.A. City Council level? I am not willing to admit that BUT, I have written of my "dream" of having 1,080-units built at the site.
I must to continue to demand that the current zoning at the site remain because Bob has not seen fit to lower the number of units he is currently wishing to build to any sort of number of units that can be reasonably discussed, nor has he been willing to actively seek compromises in the number of units with Ms. Hahn's Community Advisory Committee or members of the Rudderless Steering Committee of R Neighborhoods Are 1, or any other group of opponents of his current plans, I strongly feel.
__________________________________________________
Both supporters of Bob's current plans and folks opposed to them have been working with important individuals to attempt to allow for the best seating possible, at the public hearing.
I don't have any new information to report, but it appears that both sides may be allowed a certain number of seats within the auditorium and that there may be a way of handing out seating assignments just prior to the hearing.
I am sure that there will be a number of individuals and groups selected by the Ponte Vista side, to address the Hearing Officer. That may also be the case with the opposition groups.
With only about 245 permanent seats in the auditorium, it might even be more comfortable just to sit outside with a comfy chair, some cool beverages (no Kool-Aid for the opposition, please) and among friends and fellow community members where peaceful discussions can take place while listening to the hearing over loud speakers.
You may want to wear clothing that can be layered. It should go from being pleasantly warm to unpleasantly cool, with fog, outside the auditorium.
Congratulations to VDONAC, the greater Vista del Oro area and its residents. Congratulations also go out to the rest of OUR community who loved McCowan's and have over development
Sunday, June 22, 2008
For Your Information, SRHS 15
On Tuesday June 24, 2008, the Board of Education of the Los Angeles Unified School District will take up a motion to change the number of seats projected for South Region High School #15 (SRHS 15) from 1,205 seats, down to 810-seats.
SRHS 15 is currently projected to be built on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur.
If you remember, in May, 2007, the Board of Education lowered the number of projected seats of South Region High School #14 (SRHS 14) down from 2,025-seats, to 810-seats.
SRHS 14 was projected to be built within the Ponte Vista at San Pedro site. Later in 2007 the Board of Education decided to 'mothball' SRHS 14 and not build it, at this time, to relieve overcrowding at Narbonne High School.
Where might these developments leave us, concerning Ponte Vista?
If the Board of Education lowers the number of projected seats for SRHS 15 down to the number of projected seats of SRHS 14, then opponents of building SRHS 15 on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur may attempt to have the location of SRHS 15 moved to either the Ponte Vista at San Pedro site, or another site in northwest San Pedro.
I need to state that I have suggested to many opponents of building SRHS 15 on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur, that I feel building SRHS 15 at the current site of Cooper/Science Center facilities along Taper Avenue and Barrywood/Sandwood Place, makes some sense.
SRHS 15 is currently projected to be built approximately 8/10 of a mile south of San Pedro High School and that much further out on the Palos Verdes peninsula.
Alma Street in the area of Angel's Gate is a curvy, narrow, non-arterial road that cannot handle a new campus of any size.
The Point Fermin Outdoor Education Center, which has been in operation for about 20 years
has been approved for a redevelopment that will allow up to 13,000 students, per year, overnight educational experiences lasting 3 or 4 days AND nights.
A new high school campus should not be built directly next to the redeveloped Outdoor Education Center.
With the 'mothballing' of SRHS 14 at Ponte Vista, there would be room created ("6-8 acres" according to documents concerning an 810-seat SRHS 14) so that SRHS 15 could be built within the Ponte Vista site.
Opponents of building a new high school campus near Angel's Gate also contend that it would be more convenient to build a new campus closer to four-lane access routes like Western, Gaffey, and Westmont.
Whether you support Bob's current plans or not, we all need information about what might happen concerning SRHS 15. I think it is important to OUR community to learn as much as they can about the projected new campus.
The group spearheading opposition to building SRHS 15 and building it on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur is: Neighborhoods Organized and Involved to Support Education (NOISE).
As a founding Board member of that organization, I am opposed to SRHS 15 being built where it is currently projected to be built for two reasons: 1)There MUST NOT be a new high school campus built directly next to the redeveloped Point Fermin Outdoor Education Center 2) There is no safe and sufficient means to transport students, faculty, staff, deliveries, and visitors to any new campus WITHOUT taking, by eminent domain, at least one house and lot along 30Th Street to provide access via a signalized intersection at Gaffey Street and 30th Street.
I have since left the Board of NOISE and am working hard to oppose Bob's current plans for Ponte Vista, working as a Traffic Safety Commissioner for the City of Rancho Palos Verdes, becoming more involved with the redevelopment of the Port of L.A. waterfront, becoming more concerned with the Clearwater Program, and trying to find a job within AT&T after my hip replacement that denied me the opportunity to return to my old job.
Please remember that you should stand up for something before you fall for anything. Please remember that, now more than ever.
SRHS 15 is currently projected to be built on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur.
If you remember, in May, 2007, the Board of Education lowered the number of projected seats of South Region High School #14 (SRHS 14) down from 2,025-seats, to 810-seats.
SRHS 14 was projected to be built within the Ponte Vista at San Pedro site. Later in 2007 the Board of Education decided to 'mothball' SRHS 14 and not build it, at this time, to relieve overcrowding at Narbonne High School.
Where might these developments leave us, concerning Ponte Vista?
If the Board of Education lowers the number of projected seats for SRHS 15 down to the number of projected seats of SRHS 14, then opponents of building SRHS 15 on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur may attempt to have the location of SRHS 15 moved to either the Ponte Vista at San Pedro site, or another site in northwest San Pedro.
I need to state that I have suggested to many opponents of building SRHS 15 on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur, that I feel building SRHS 15 at the current site of Cooper/Science Center facilities along Taper Avenue and Barrywood/Sandwood Place, makes some sense.
SRHS 15 is currently projected to be built approximately 8/10 of a mile south of San Pedro High School and that much further out on the Palos Verdes peninsula.
Alma Street in the area of Angel's Gate is a curvy, narrow, non-arterial road that cannot handle a new campus of any size.
The Point Fermin Outdoor Education Center, which has been in operation for about 20 years
has been approved for a redevelopment that will allow up to 13,000 students, per year, overnight educational experiences lasting 3 or 4 days AND nights.
A new high school campus should not be built directly next to the redeveloped Outdoor Education Center.
With the 'mothballing' of SRHS 14 at Ponte Vista, there would be room created ("6-8 acres" according to documents concerning an 810-seat SRHS 14) so that SRHS 15 could be built within the Ponte Vista site.
Opponents of building a new high school campus near Angel's Gate also contend that it would be more convenient to build a new campus closer to four-lane access routes like Western, Gaffey, and Westmont.
Whether you support Bob's current plans or not, we all need information about what might happen concerning SRHS 15. I think it is important to OUR community to learn as much as they can about the projected new campus.
The group spearheading opposition to building SRHS 15 and building it on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur is: Neighborhoods Organized and Involved to Support Education (NOISE).
As a founding Board member of that organization, I am opposed to SRHS 15 being built where it is currently projected to be built for two reasons: 1)There MUST NOT be a new high school campus built directly next to the redeveloped Point Fermin Outdoor Education Center 2) There is no safe and sufficient means to transport students, faculty, staff, deliveries, and visitors to any new campus WITHOUT taking, by eminent domain, at least one house and lot along 30Th Street to provide access via a signalized intersection at Gaffey Street and 30th Street.
I have since left the Board of NOISE and am working hard to oppose Bob's current plans for Ponte Vista, working as a Traffic Safety Commissioner for the City of Rancho Palos Verdes, becoming more involved with the redevelopment of the Port of L.A. waterfront, becoming more concerned with the Clearwater Program, and trying to find a job within AT&T after my hip replacement that denied me the opportunity to return to my old job.
Please remember that you should stand up for something before you fall for anything. Please remember that, now more than ever.
Comments Not Mailed In Yet? Time to Email
If you haven't finished your written comments for the Hearing Officer at the upcoming Public Hearing on June 26, you can still Email them to: david.olivo@lacity.org.
Mr. Olivo has been working with the Ponte Vista development issues for years now, at the Los Angeles City Department of Planning and he attended almost, if not all of the Community Advisory Committee meetings held on the manner and established by Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Bob Bisno.
I haven't completed my second set of comments, so I need to get them Emailed soon.
If you are planning on attending the Public Hearing at the John Olguin Auditorium of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, please bring along some comfortable lawn or folding chairs.
There will probably be a speaker system set up outside the Auditorium to provide the hearing to folks who won't be able to find seats inside the Auditorium.
You may also wish to include some cold drinks. I hope the crowd remains cordial to each other. There will be lots and lots of people on all sides of the Ponte Vista issue attending the Hearing.
For you Ponte Vista supporters, be sure you don't miss out on the free meal being served at the Bath House, beginning at 3:30, so I have been informed.
Bob is 'paying' you for your support, so you shouldn't miss receiving your 'pay'.
Oh, by the way, if anyone sees a fellow that is larger than me (as if that is possible) with a balding head and probably wearing a tie and jacket and close to Bob or Bob's associates, that may very well be Mr. Steve Afriat, the biggest lobbyist in the City of Los Angeles.
Mr. Afriat has been associates with Bob's 'weapon of mass development' plans for some time now.
Of course you may also be able to spot Rudy Svornich, another lobbyist who has worked for Bob.
Rudy is a former City Councilman for the 15th District and he has found apparently, that it is more profitable to take from the community than serve it.
If you get the chance and you recognize Ms. Elise Swanson, the Vice President in charge of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team, please say "Hi" from Sven Ludvquist O'Brien and wish her well.
You may also see members of the Papadakis family attending the Hearing. Please smile at them, too.
You will probably see individuals who you will not recognize attending and supporting Bob, at the Hearing. Please ask them if they enjoyed their dinner at the Bath House and wish them a safe drive back to there homes which for the most part, will NOT be in San Pedro.
Look for some Red Buttons. If you are of a mind to want one, there should be one available for you to wear and demonstrate your opposition to Bob's current plans.
The newest button has a red background and the entire text on the button is "R1" in white, with a black shadow.
If you know who I am, I should have some available and there will be other wonderful, thoughtful, intelligent, caring, concerned, and valuable persons distributing buttons, too.
If you don't know who I am, I will probably be wearing my most favorite button.
My favorite button comes from Bob Bisno's use of the term "ranting elitist" which he described as persons who do not wish to have more residents in the area of northwest San Pedro and eastern Palos Verdes at his Ponte Vista at San Pedro.
Bob used the term in a "Guest Column" he wrote in the Daily Breeze.
I created a number of different versions of the "ranting elitist" button. The vast majority of the buttons were depicting the six different ranks for generals.
I happen to be one of the three "Major Ranting Elitist" that there are. The other two individuals who have earned the rank of Major Ranting Elitist are not able to wear their buttons in public for reasons I cannot get into.
So let's all have as much fun as we can this coming Thursday. I hope the Hearing is peaceful and provides the Hearing Officer with lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, of testimony to mull over, which will take a long, long, long, long time to consider.
Let's be honest, I want to slow the whole process down so much that a snail can cross Western Avenue without getting smashed, 1000 times before the Planning Department comes out with what it thinks Bob can successfully build on the 61.53 acre site.
Have a great and much cooler week!
Mr. Olivo has been working with the Ponte Vista development issues for years now, at the Los Angeles City Department of Planning and he attended almost, if not all of the Community Advisory Committee meetings held on the manner and established by Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Bob Bisno.
I haven't completed my second set of comments, so I need to get them Emailed soon.
If you are planning on attending the Public Hearing at the John Olguin Auditorium of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, please bring along some comfortable lawn or folding chairs.
There will probably be a speaker system set up outside the Auditorium to provide the hearing to folks who won't be able to find seats inside the Auditorium.
You may also wish to include some cold drinks. I hope the crowd remains cordial to each other. There will be lots and lots of people on all sides of the Ponte Vista issue attending the Hearing.
For you Ponte Vista supporters, be sure you don't miss out on the free meal being served at the Bath House, beginning at 3:30, so I have been informed.
Bob is 'paying' you for your support, so you shouldn't miss receiving your 'pay'.
Oh, by the way, if anyone sees a fellow that is larger than me (as if that is possible) with a balding head and probably wearing a tie and jacket and close to Bob or Bob's associates, that may very well be Mr. Steve Afriat, the biggest lobbyist in the City of Los Angeles.
Mr. Afriat has been associates with Bob's 'weapon of mass development' plans for some time now.
Of course you may also be able to spot Rudy Svornich, another lobbyist who has worked for Bob.
Rudy is a former City Councilman for the 15th District and he has found apparently, that it is more profitable to take from the community than serve it.
If you get the chance and you recognize Ms. Elise Swanson, the Vice President in charge of the Ponte Vista Outreach Team, please say "Hi" from Sven Ludvquist O'Brien and wish her well.
You may also see members of the Papadakis family attending the Hearing. Please smile at them, too.
You will probably see individuals who you will not recognize attending and supporting Bob, at the Hearing. Please ask them if they enjoyed their dinner at the Bath House and wish them a safe drive back to there homes which for the most part, will NOT be in San Pedro.
Look for some Red Buttons. If you are of a mind to want one, there should be one available for you to wear and demonstrate your opposition to Bob's current plans.
The newest button has a red background and the entire text on the button is "R1" in white, with a black shadow.
If you know who I am, I should have some available and there will be other wonderful, thoughtful, intelligent, caring, concerned, and valuable persons distributing buttons, too.
If you don't know who I am, I will probably be wearing my most favorite button.
My favorite button comes from Bob Bisno's use of the term "ranting elitist" which he described as persons who do not wish to have more residents in the area of northwest San Pedro and eastern Palos Verdes at his Ponte Vista at San Pedro.
Bob used the term in a "Guest Column" he wrote in the Daily Breeze.
I created a number of different versions of the "ranting elitist" button. The vast majority of the buttons were depicting the six different ranks for generals.
I happen to be one of the three "Major Ranting Elitist" that there are. The other two individuals who have earned the rank of Major Ranting Elitist are not able to wear their buttons in public for reasons I cannot get into.
So let's all have as much fun as we can this coming Thursday. I hope the Hearing is peaceful and provides the Hearing Officer with lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, of testimony to mull over, which will take a long, long, long, long time to consider.
Let's be honest, I want to slow the whole process down so much that a snail can cross Western Avenue without getting smashed, 1000 times before the Planning Department comes out with what it thinks Bob can successfully build on the 61.53 acre site.
Have a great and much cooler week!
Saturday, June 21, 2008
A Three-Blog Post for a Great Community Event
This is the first post which will appear on three of my blogs.
The Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta is scheduled for July 18-20, 2008.
While I was collecting signatures on postcards for the Public Hearing outside Von's at 25Th and Western, I learned that an organizer for the Fiesta was denied permission to place posters for the upcoming event inside the store.
I think the rebuke by Von's manager was quite poor, especially because it is the 61st annual Fiesta and it certainly is one of OUR community's honored, valued, and enjoyed events.
So I decided to do a first regarding some of my blogs and post the same information on three different blogs.
Real San Pedrans and good individuals who continue to strive to become Real San Pedrans know that the Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta is just an event that must be attended.
Can Real San Pedrans count how many Italian or Fish Dinners they have eaten over the years at the Fiesta? I know I can't.
I am not even a member of the Catholic religion, yet I still enjoy attending the Fiesta.
It's interesting to see how many different rides, booths, and other things can be packed into the space at the Church site.
Real San Pedrans and wonderful others contribute by helping to select the Fiesta Queen and the campaigning all over OUR community is great!
So poo-poo to the manager at Von's. Just look around at many other businesses in OUR community and I bet you will find the multi-colored poster in many, many windows.
If you have never attended the Fiesta, please plan on attending this year.
If you can already taste the dinners served every year at the Fiesta, please enjoy yet another fine meal.
The Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta, a great event in OUR community.
The Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta is scheduled for July 18-20, 2008.
While I was collecting signatures on postcards for the Public Hearing outside Von's at 25Th and Western, I learned that an organizer for the Fiesta was denied permission to place posters for the upcoming event inside the store.
I think the rebuke by Von's manager was quite poor, especially because it is the 61st annual Fiesta and it certainly is one of OUR community's honored, valued, and enjoyed events.
So I decided to do a first regarding some of my blogs and post the same information on three different blogs.
Real San Pedrans and good individuals who continue to strive to become Real San Pedrans know that the Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta is just an event that must be attended.
Can Real San Pedrans count how many Italian or Fish Dinners they have eaten over the years at the Fiesta? I know I can't.
I am not even a member of the Catholic religion, yet I still enjoy attending the Fiesta.
It's interesting to see how many different rides, booths, and other things can be packed into the space at the Church site.
Real San Pedrans and wonderful others contribute by helping to select the Fiesta Queen and the campaigning all over OUR community is great!
So poo-poo to the manager at Von's. Just look around at many other businesses in OUR community and I bet you will find the multi-colored poster in many, many windows.
If you have never attended the Fiesta, please plan on attending this year.
If you can already taste the dinners served every year at the Fiesta, please enjoy yet another fine meal.
The Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta, a great event in OUR community.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Odds and Ends 70
Hey Bob, Alan, and Elise, my support for your current plans for Ponte Vista can be purchased, too.
Here is all that I want before I change my ways:
A new road between Ponte Vista/Mary Star and Gaffey Street. You will need to put funds into escrow for that BEFORE the Public Hearing.
I would also like a new set of ramps to and from the 110 Freeway to the new road, using the area between the warehouses and the refinery. Again, you will need to put the funds for this into an escrow account before June 26th, 2008.
Yesterday I thought I wanted a new Smart Car. Now I want a Honda Hybrid because both of my sons have '08 Honda Civics and I need to keep up with my boys. Please place my brand new Honda Civic Hybrid, blue please, outside my home by this Sunday. Leave the title to the Civic in my mailbox if I am not home.
I would also like a ride on the Goodyear Blimp. This must be provided either this coming Monday or Tuesday.
When all of these issues are completely settled in MY opinion, then I will write a new post supporting whatever you want. You must be advised that any and all of my aliases will continue to strongly oppose your current plans. I will also have others write posts condemning your current plans.
See, isn't it easy to be able to have your support for Bob's current plans purchased?
Now, you should all find whatever you want in the way of purchase prices, for your support for Bob's current plans.
We all know that none of what Bob has 'bought' from businesses, individuals, and groups will be good unless he gets what he wants.
But there is no real way for that to ever happen, so many of us believe.
_________________________________________________
It is probably too soon to see how much Eastview Little League will actually lose by its management selling the kids and their dreams to Bob Bisno.
I think just about everyone critical of EVLL will now be even more critical of that group's management.
I think folks who were sympathetic or sitting on the fence, will now find themselves quickly standing on the side of the fence that is critical of the management of EVLL.
I think weak supporters of the continuing plight of EVLL and their struggles because their lack of vision for their own future, for so many years, will become unsympathetic of EVLL's plight when their deal with Bob falls apart.
I think even strong supporters of EVLL, who oppose Bob's current plans at Ponte Vista, will feel sold out by the management of the league.
Again it seems, the management of EVLL lost sight of the league's future, for a quick fix that really won't ever happen, many of us feel.
_________________________________________________
So, who is actually going to have to pay for the Eastview Little League IF they were to get new fields at Ponte Vista?
Don't you think prospective buyers of potential units in the senior section will not feel too kindly to the increase in price to pay for the ball fields and land for Eastview Little League.
Might the Yuppies who don't and won't ever want children if and when they move into Ponte Vista object to having the price of their units attached to the 'gift' of land Bob is attempting to give away?
After all this recent marketing, and all the new support Bob is paying to attract, do you really believe Bob will 'eat' any of his potential profit, for Eastview Little League?
_______________________________________________
As with Lincoln Place in Santa Monica, when the going gets tough, the Bob gets going.....away.
Bob no longer owns any of that project, having finally sold out his remaining interest to the largest rental management business in the U.S.A.
_______________________________________________
Don't you wonder who Bob will try and purchase support from, next?
You may guess and make your comments on who you think will be the next to sell out OUR community to Bob and his bunch.
_______________________________________________
Before the banner adorning Butch's Auto Repair business blew, too many times onto the roof, it displayed opposition to Bob's current plans for Ponte Vista.
Have any of you seen banners, fliers, or other written material supporting Bob's current plans for Ponte Vista at Papadakis Taverna, Herb Zimmer's printing business, Taxco, Apple One, or anywhere else, for that matter.
The Rudderless Steering Committee of R Neighbors Are 1 has received many new requests for lawn signs. I bet you won't see that from Ponte Vista supporters.
______________________________________________
As for supporting Ponte Vista, I do support Ponte Vista remaining R1-1XL, and OS1-1XL.
______________________________________________
We all have only six more days to create, mail, Email, or save for the Public Hearing, our written comments concerning what we feel Bob should be allowed to build.
In my first set of comments, snail-mailed in last week, I illustrated all the other developments in the area that are, will, and probably will come online over the next several years, in OUR community.
I am still writing my second set of comments and have six pages written, so far, on why Bob's current plans will absolutely NOT work in OUR community.
Please think of how Ponte Vista, built using Bob's current plans will affect your quality of life, as well as your family's quality of life and their overall future in OUR community.
___________________________________________
Now that the South Region High School #14 plans for building an 810-seat senior high school at Ponte Vista to ease over crowding of Narbonne H.S. has been mothballed, a new direction has been revealed by some members of OUR community.
Many members of OUR community do not want any new high school campus built on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur.
On June 24, the LAUSD Board of Education is taking up the motion to lower the number of seats at the planned South Region High School #15, from 1,205 seats, down to 810-seats.
If this does take place, there will be an even greater call to use the "6-8 acres" LAUSD states it needs to build an 810-seat campus, at Ponte Vista, in northwest San Pedro.
Thousands of members of OUR community believe building a new campus 8/10 of a mile south of San Pedro High School and further out on the peninsula, make less sense than building the new campus on the north side of San Pedro.
If SRHS 15 becomes a 810-seat campus, look forward to a strong fight to build it closer to where more students actually live, and closer to central and north San Pedro.
____________________________________________
Here is all that I want before I change my ways:
A new road between Ponte Vista/Mary Star and Gaffey Street. You will need to put funds into escrow for that BEFORE the Public Hearing.
I would also like a new set of ramps to and from the 110 Freeway to the new road, using the area between the warehouses and the refinery. Again, you will need to put the funds for this into an escrow account before June 26th, 2008.
Yesterday I thought I wanted a new Smart Car. Now I want a Honda Hybrid because both of my sons have '08 Honda Civics and I need to keep up with my boys. Please place my brand new Honda Civic Hybrid, blue please, outside my home by this Sunday. Leave the title to the Civic in my mailbox if I am not home.
I would also like a ride on the Goodyear Blimp. This must be provided either this coming Monday or Tuesday.
When all of these issues are completely settled in MY opinion, then I will write a new post supporting whatever you want. You must be advised that any and all of my aliases will continue to strongly oppose your current plans. I will also have others write posts condemning your current plans.
See, isn't it easy to be able to have your support for Bob's current plans purchased?
Now, you should all find whatever you want in the way of purchase prices, for your support for Bob's current plans.
We all know that none of what Bob has 'bought' from businesses, individuals, and groups will be good unless he gets what he wants.
But there is no real way for that to ever happen, so many of us believe.
_________________________________________________
It is probably too soon to see how much Eastview Little League will actually lose by its management selling the kids and their dreams to Bob Bisno.
I think just about everyone critical of EVLL will now be even more critical of that group's management.
I think folks who were sympathetic or sitting on the fence, will now find themselves quickly standing on the side of the fence that is critical of the management of EVLL.
I think weak supporters of the continuing plight of EVLL and their struggles because their lack of vision for their own future, for so many years, will become unsympathetic of EVLL's plight when their deal with Bob falls apart.
I think even strong supporters of EVLL, who oppose Bob's current plans at Ponte Vista, will feel sold out by the management of the league.
Again it seems, the management of EVLL lost sight of the league's future, for a quick fix that really won't ever happen, many of us feel.
_________________________________________________
So, who is actually going to have to pay for the Eastview Little League IF they were to get new fields at Ponte Vista?
Don't you think prospective buyers of potential units in the senior section will not feel too kindly to the increase in price to pay for the ball fields and land for Eastview Little League.
Might the Yuppies who don't and won't ever want children if and when they move into Ponte Vista object to having the price of their units attached to the 'gift' of land Bob is attempting to give away?
After all this recent marketing, and all the new support Bob is paying to attract, do you really believe Bob will 'eat' any of his potential profit, for Eastview Little League?
_______________________________________________
As with Lincoln Place in Santa Monica, when the going gets tough, the Bob gets going.....away.
Bob no longer owns any of that project, having finally sold out his remaining interest to the largest rental management business in the U.S.A.
_______________________________________________
Don't you wonder who Bob will try and purchase support from, next?
You may guess and make your comments on who you think will be the next to sell out OUR community to Bob and his bunch.
_______________________________________________
Before the banner adorning Butch's Auto Repair business blew, too many times onto the roof, it displayed opposition to Bob's current plans for Ponte Vista.
Have any of you seen banners, fliers, or other written material supporting Bob's current plans for Ponte Vista at Papadakis Taverna, Herb Zimmer's printing business, Taxco, Apple One, or anywhere else, for that matter.
The Rudderless Steering Committee of R Neighbors Are 1 has received many new requests for lawn signs. I bet you won't see that from Ponte Vista supporters.
______________________________________________
As for supporting Ponte Vista, I do support Ponte Vista remaining R1-1XL, and OS1-1XL.
______________________________________________
We all have only six more days to create, mail, Email, or save for the Public Hearing, our written comments concerning what we feel Bob should be allowed to build.
In my first set of comments, snail-mailed in last week, I illustrated all the other developments in the area that are, will, and probably will come online over the next several years, in OUR community.
I am still writing my second set of comments and have six pages written, so far, on why Bob's current plans will absolutely NOT work in OUR community.
Please think of how Ponte Vista, built using Bob's current plans will affect your quality of life, as well as your family's quality of life and their overall future in OUR community.
___________________________________________
Now that the South Region High School #14 plans for building an 810-seat senior high school at Ponte Vista to ease over crowding of Narbonne H.S. has been mothballed, a new direction has been revealed by some members of OUR community.
Many members of OUR community do not want any new high school campus built on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur.
On June 24, the LAUSD Board of Education is taking up the motion to lower the number of seats at the planned South Region High School #15, from 1,205 seats, down to 810-seats.
If this does take place, there will be an even greater call to use the "6-8 acres" LAUSD states it needs to build an 810-seat campus, at Ponte Vista, in northwest San Pedro.
Thousands of members of OUR community believe building a new campus 8/10 of a mile south of San Pedro High School and further out on the peninsula, make less sense than building the new campus on the north side of San Pedro.
If SRHS 15 becomes a 810-seat campus, look forward to a strong fight to build it closer to where more students actually live, and closer to central and north San Pedro.
____________________________________________
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Selling All of Us Out!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 will NOT use children as pawns, shields, or warriors!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 does NOT need to use desperation tactics to buy any support!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 has NEVER created a position, reneged on it, and then crawled back to OUR community when the going got difficult!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 WILL NOT purchase support from anyone!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 knows what is best for OUR community and it is NOT 1,950 condominiums, not even close!
It is sad to see Eastview Little League's leaders believe that Bob would do what he claims he would do.
I think Eastview Little League will find much more difficulty finding a true permanent home when their 'bargain with the devil' backfires on them.
EVLL, you have lost more than one sympathetic person to your ongoing plight.
EVLL, we WILL shop at the new Target.
EVLL, your leaders sold all your families out, for not much more than 40 pieces of chewing gum.
When the Planning Department finally comes out with what they feel should be built at Ponte Vista, just watch and see how fast Bob will use you to try and increase the number of units at Ponte Vista.
But then EVLL, it will be too late. You sold out your children. You sold out your families. You sold out OUR community!
Shame on you!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 does NOT need to use desperation tactics to buy any support!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 has NEVER created a position, reneged on it, and then crawled back to OUR community when the going got difficult!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 WILL NOT purchase support from anyone!
R Neighborhoods Are 1 knows what is best for OUR community and it is NOT 1,950 condominiums, not even close!
It is sad to see Eastview Little League's leaders believe that Bob would do what he claims he would do.
I think Eastview Little League will find much more difficulty finding a true permanent home when their 'bargain with the devil' backfires on them.
EVLL, you have lost more than one sympathetic person to your ongoing plight.
EVLL, we WILL shop at the new Target.
EVLL, your leaders sold all your families out, for not much more than 40 pieces of chewing gum.
When the Planning Department finally comes out with what they feel should be built at Ponte Vista, just watch and see how fast Bob will use you to try and increase the number of units at Ponte Vista.
But then EVLL, it will be too late. You sold out your children. You sold out your families. You sold out OUR community!
Shame on you!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)