Venice Beach Flowerbeds

Can Venice Beach Boardwalk Businesses have flowerbeds like the above London bar?

Palm Tree Promise

City fulfilled its promised in July 2000, and all of the 600 plus Palm Trees from Washington Blvd. to Navy Street are trimmed and shaved. Hooray!

Our city of Los Angeles promised to trim the palm trees along the Venice Beach Boardwalk during the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1999. When they made the promise, the city trimmed approximately 100 trees as a good faith measure, promising to trim the other 500 in the first month of the new fiscal year. Those 500 palms have NOT been trimmed. Yet again, the politicians have proven themselves to be liars filled with little more than political rhetoric.

I have not forgotten the promise and I will make the city accountable.

Gone Fishin'?

A homeless couple helped me paint swing sets and slides in Venice Beach, CA as part of my clean up effort for this summer.

"Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he will
eat for a lifetime."

Why do we give food to the homeless rather that teach them a skill? Doesn't this just perpetuate their homelessness? If we really care, why don't we take them into our homes?

Protect and Serve?

"Celebrity" Officer Brent Honore conducting business on the
Venice Beach Beat. He appeared on The Discovery Channel's special about the L.A.P.D.'s Venice Beach Patrol Thursday, August 5th.

By the way, I'm surprised Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks allows selective enforcement of law in Venice Beach. Clearly, in the Discovery news story, some homeless are allowed to camp on Venice Beach and others
not. Favoritism? Discrimination? This is not right or legal, according
to the law. I know it's a tough job being a peace officer but please
apply the same law consistently. If not, it is time to change the law.

On the Discovery program it was reported that there are more than 3000 homeless living here on Venice Beach. There may be 150 at the most. During the holiday feedings, at most, we get 1000 "homeless", in reality, many are the working poor. I live here and I know the majority of the homeless. Why the exaggeration? Who can I sue for defamation of the character of Venice Beach? Venice Beach
is a community based on tourism. This kind of misinformation hurts our reputation and the businesses of this community.

In other ways, the city worsens the problem rather than helps. Just
Saturday, I saw a young lady, a street artist, selling her art. She
paints light bulbs with rainbow colors and designs. They're beautiful.From this, she makes her livelihood. She is not wealthy by any means, yet, her only source of income is taken away from her by the law. A Venice Beach L.A.P.D. officer cringed as he told her that the City Attorney said she could no longer sell her art here. She was allowed to finish out the day.

By the way, where are the Jewish and Christian organizations to take
these homeless into their homes and care for them, the
homeless?

Los Angeles Parking Tickets

The system needs to change. Talk about inconsistency.

First of all, Venice Beach is a difficult place to find parking.

Second, the Los Angeles Parking Enforcement gives parking tickets even on private property.

Third, that is SOMETIMES. Like the Grim Reaper, you never know whether they'll issue you a ticket or not.

Lastly, fighting the ticket is a monumental task. The city has the system rigged so that it is nearly impossible to lodge your complaint.

While the rules and regulations to challenge a moving traffic violation are clear, the city makes it as frustrating as possible to challenge the ordinary parking
ticket.

Although, my cap is off to L.A.'s Department of Transportation for posting most of the street signs I had requested, there are two more areas where we need additional street markings.

On Brooks Avenue, we need a "Stop Ahead" street marking sign. Every year tourists, making their way through the alleys of Venice Beach in search of parking, get cited for failing to stop at Brooks and Speedway. Let's fix the problem rather than ruin a tourist's day with a ticket.

Another location is at Clubhouse and Speedway. If not a loading zone, paint the over the yellow with gray, otherwise post a loading zone sign. If not a loading zone, paint the yellow over with gray. Otherwise post a loading zone sign. At least, make it clear.

Flag Fiasco!

Have you ever felt like supporting your city by volunteering your time in a city task force or city-run community project? If so, think again.Your payment may be the smearing of your name in the local newspaper. It happened to me, thanks to the city of Los Angeles.

I'm almost solely responsible for cleaning up Venice Beach this summer. For example, I'm responsible for the three flags flying at the Venice Beach Pavilion, but even that incited a major battle with the city. Can you imagine? A war over three flags. Eventually the city won by
changing the padlocks to which they had provided me the keys just months before.

They did this to foil my efforts to hoist three additional flags: the UN, LA County and Venice Beach flags. I was trying to develop community spirit with the flags: UN, for all our foreign visitors, US for all the visitors from other states, CA. for the citizens of California, County, for County residents, City, for city residents, and finally the Venice Flag for the community residents.

Yet, our community pride has again been eclipsed by our local politicians. It's a divide and conquer attitude. Our local politicians slapped us in the face, and prohibited us from flying our own flags in
our own community. This childish game may have doomed Venice Beach back
into dilapidation.

Maybe Venice Beach should think about succession, just like the Valley.
Communities who feel they're being shafted by the city of Los Angeles.

Whatever happens, it has become clear to me that local government in L.A. is certainly NOT for the people, by the people...

The Grim Reaper

The Grim Reaper has struck again in Venice Beach. This past weekend it was the light bulb artists. Who will it be next? There seems to be at least one target every weekend since June 6th. Not only do the artists suffer duress under the new policy, but the Venice Beach Police Patrol is placed in an uncomfortable position when forced to take away what is the sole source of income from many of these beach artists.Who is behind the Grim Reaper's mask?

I suggested developing a system similar to Portland's Saturday Market in Portland, OR. here in Venice Beach to develop a win-win outcome for merchants, street artists, residents and tourists.  I gave the template to my councilwoman's office over a year ago, apparently, its only outcome was to fall on deaf ears.

Local Rapper Dr. Geek

My Mom hangs out with one of the local street performers in Venice Beach, CA. Hey, Mom, remember you're married! Watch out!

The "F" Word!

Recently, a representative from Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter's Office called me at home and left a nasty message.

Among the words they left on my answering machine, I discovered the "F" word.

Unbelievable.

It was a tape answering machine. Tapes didn't bode well for Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky or President Clinton.
What about Ruth Galanter?

Should I, a local citizen, be berated in this way by my elected officials?

I did more good for my Venice Beach community in the past year than our representative had done for years.

Perhaps I was making her look bad.

In any case, neither the office representative nor the Councilwoman called and apologized for the use of vulgar language. Nor did they write a letter of apology.

What do you think they should do?