Hometown Hero: Barbara Stinchfield

Barbara Stinchfield
Photo by Annie Stinchfield

SUSAN CLOKE

Mirror Columnist

December 30, 2011

“I came to Santa Monica at a time of high activism in the City.  There were many ideas being discussed and many people interested in the things I was interested in: child- care advocacy, youth services and working with non-profits.  It seemed a good fit,” said Barbara Stinchfield, who will retire at the end of December from her long-term position as Director of Community and Cultural Services for the City of Santa Monica. 

Looking back on her work Stinchfield said, “I was living in Oregon and right out of graduate school, with a master’s degree in counseling, I worked on youth advocacy programs.  I worked on the founding of a shelter for runaway teenagers and the development of public alternative schools.

“When I came to Los Angeles I realized there wasn’t really a similar niche so I decided to get my MBA and that led to the job with Santa Monica.  Now that I’m retiring people keep talking about my legacy and it’s hard for me to get perspective on that idea.  What I am most proud of is that we have a strong department team and I know that when I leave there will be a smooth transition.”

She began in the Community and Neighborhood Services Division and was quickly promoted to be the manager.  It was a small division, funded by federal grants.

Soon after, the Council made a policy decision to fund non-profits doing work that furthered policy goals of promoting affordable housing construction, park improvements and the growing neighborhood associations in the City.   Monies from the General Fund were added to the federal grant monies.

“We helped OPCC (Ocean Park Community Center) fund a shelter for runaway youth and the Clare Foundation to fund a house for shelter and programs,” said Stinchfield.  “We also added a focus on human service planning activities and stewarded the writing of the Child Care Master Plan and the Youth Action Plan, working in coordination with the community.

“What started as a small division with a budget of about $600,000 grew to what it is today,  $7 million coming from grants and general funds.”

In the early 1990’s she was given the job as assistant director of Community and Cultural Services, a new department, the old division was disbanded and neighborhood services became the human services division of the new department.

Under Stinchfield’s leadership the Department developed the Open Space Element of the General Plan and the long range Parks and Recreation Master Plan. 

In the late 1990’s the then City Manager, John Jalili, appointed Stinchfield as Community and Cultural Services Director.  Sinchfield said, “my mission was to build a cohesive team with the common goal of serving Santa Monica.”

It was a time of a major building boom in capital projects.  It’s an impressive list: the Swim Center at Santa Monica College: the renovation of Douglas Park; the new children’s playground at Reed Park; the building of Airport Park and Euclid Park; the expansion of Virginia Avenue Park with a focus on a comprehensive center for the neighborhood and especially neighborhood youth; building the new promenade, bike path, parks and restrooms at the beach; the renovation of the northern part of Palisades Park; and the restoration of Miles Playhouse.

“It hasn’t always been a bed of roses,” said Stinchfield.  “For instance we thought people would be delighted to have a new park on Euclid.  But they weren’t.   We put up a tent in the parking lot to have a meeting with the neighbors, we listened to them and added community gardens and made it primarily for children.  People felt heard.

“I’m known for my frankness.  It’s gotten me into some interesting dilemmas.  People appreciate it but they sometimes wonder how I can be so frank.  It’s just an Oregonian trait.  Its something I’m known for with a chuckle.  It surprised some people, but ultimately people knew where I stood and that I would not go back on my word.

“The biggest example is the Beach House.  It’s well known that neighbors were concerned and there were many, many meetings and much hammering out of parameters.  Out of that came the settlement agreement we now live with and the neighbors are happy.

“In Santa Monica, we believe in major community participation.  My daughter, Annie, came to community meetings with me and was often the first to raise her hand.  Imagine my surprise when she told me she wanted to have a meeting at her nursery school about creating a quiet place.  But we had that meeting and today there is the Ellen Stinchfield quiet room at the Growing Place, named in honor of Annie’s grandmother.

“One indication of how I work is that I just have easy chairs and a coffee table in my office.  I did that on purpose.  I want people to feel free to come in and plop down and work things out together.  I want to listen, understand and find solutions.

 “People like to work with authentic, honest and fair people and that’s what I’ve I tried to be.  You can have technical skills, but if you don’t speak the truth when the truth needs to be spoken you’re not leaving a legacy.”

What Say You: Ocean Park Green Street Celebration

OPA Board Members at the Groundbreaking Ceremony

SUSAN CLOKE

Mirror Columnist

This past wonderfully rainy December Monday, 50 people, members of the Ocean Park community and members of City Staff, came together at the Ocean Park Library to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Ocean Park Boulevard Green Street Project.

Ocean Park Boulevard has been redesigned from Lincoln Boulevard to Neilson Way with a new, sustainable and native landscape, over one hundred new trees, wider sidewalks, new parkways, new medians, bio-swales and infiltration areas to capture, infiltrate and clean storm water, new crosswalks, bike lanes, bike racks, and new, low scale, light poles.

The initial idea for this project came from the Ocean Park community.  Neighbors remember the first meetings, almost twenty years ago, in Bob Taylor’s living room, meetings at Jane Spillar’s, meetings at Peet’s, and at OPA (Ocean Park Association). 

Bob Taylor reminded everyone that Ocean Park Boulevard had been redeveloped to accommodate the traffic that the City thought would come with planned growth at the beach when Pacific Ocean Park was built.  But widening the street divided the neighborhood and left people without a safe place to cross.  Bob said, “We have the opportunity to add modern bells and whistles to our original concept which was designed to bring the neighborhood back together.”

“It’s a gateway for Ocean Park, it puts the park back into Ocean Park Boulevard,” said Peter James, the senior planner with the City.  “This project is not solely about making Ocean Park Boulevard a better place to bike and walk and improving water quality in the Bay.  Yes, it is about sustainability and that’s important to us, but it’s fundamentally about people and their changing attitude about the role of streets in the community.

John Kaliski, the project architect, believes the project is more than the design of a street, he sees it as creating greater community.  “One of the joys of working on the Ocean Park Boulevard project is that the community wanted more before we got involved, demanded the best from us, and dogged all at the City to make sure that our collective vision is implemented. I am very hopeful that the outcome will live up to all of our expectations to bring the community physically together on foot and on bicycles, create a new sense of neighborhood identity, realize heightened sustainability with regard to storm water mitigation, and craft a street and sidewalk that is integral to people's sense of home.”

The timing is finally right, money is available for storm water capture and treatment and for supporting bicycling as transportation.  The City has made a formal commitment to sustainability.  The health of the Bay is understood to be essential to the economic health of the City.  Most importantly, protecting the health of the Bay and being a sustainable City are demands made by Santa Monicans of their government.

Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom summed up the sentiment of the day saying, “This project weaves together the threads of sustainability and brings together the two sides of the neighborhood that have been split for so long.”

Santa Monica City Civil Engineer Carlos Rosales estimates that construction on the Ocean Park Boulevard Complete Green Street project will begin this week.  He said, “Construction will last just over a year, and one lane of traffic will be kept moving in both directions at all times.”

As an Ocean Park resident, I’m hugely optimistic about this project at the same time I also realize it is only a piece of one street.  Success will really be measured by its use as a model.  For the health of the Bay we have to infiltrate storm water citywide and keep polluted, pathogen and chemical carrying storm water out of the Bay.  If biking is to become a reasonable mode of transportation to offset our carbon footprint we have to be able to travel throughout the city safely and comfortably.  Every tree planted improves air quality and provides shade and beauty. Planting 100 trees is fantastic, but we need a citywide tree canopy to significantly improve air quality.

For connecting neighborhoods, for making a reality of our commitment to sustainability, we need to think about our streets differently and to put the park back, not only into Ocean Park Boulevard, but into all our streets.

What Say You?

 

The Ocean Park Boulevard “Complete Green Street” project  www.SMConstructs.org/OPB.

Construction manager Arcadis U.S., Inc.  310.857.4946.

Previous column March 2009  “What Say You:  Green Streets.”   

 

Santa Monica Hometown Hero: Paul Rosenstein

Paul Rosenstein

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

“I always think of Santa Monica as a livable and sustainable community with a slow and thoughtful approach to growth, maintaining its small scale, minimizing auto traffic, and supporting biking and walking,” said Paul Rosenstein, two-time City Council member, former Mayor, former member of the Planning Commission and of the Pier Board and one of the founders of Mid-City Neighbors.

Paul moved to Santa Monica in 1982. His day job was as an electrician. He was a member of the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). In 2000, when Paul finished his second Council term, he took on the more than full-time job of Political Director for the IBEW, moved on to be a national representative for the AFL-CIO and then on to work with the Coalition of Unions at Kaiser Permanente, where his job focused on improving the quality of health care. 

It was a series of demanding stints and when he retired in August 2009 he was able to turn his attention to his own neighborhood and to the City. He began going to the community meetings on the LUCE (Land Use and Circulation Element) to learn what was being planned for the future of Santa Monica.

“Overall, I was impressed with the ideas and the goals of the LUCE. At the same time the scale and the amount of development in the industrial area concerned me,” said Paul.   “I saw the City as hustling people and people in the neighborhoods as not knowing what was coming down. By that I mean that the City is in transition, many projects are being proposed, and notification is neighborhood-by-neighborhood, project-by-project, but only to those who live within a 500-foot radius of the proposed project. So lots of people who will live with project impacts are not notified. There is no requirement for citywide notification even though the cumulative effect of the many projects currently being considered will be citywide.

“I saw this as a problem when I was on the Council,” Paul said. “At that time, I had proposed that the larger the project the wider the notification area should be. But the idea to expand the notification rules was not adopted and it continues to be an issue.”

“When I began to figure out the scope of what was coming, I got up at the LUCE meeting at Virginia Avenue Park and asked why we were encouraging more commercial development as there are already several thousands of people working in the City who get caught, daily, in backed up traffic on the 10 (Freeway),” he said. “I asked if it wouldn’t make more sense to build housing so people who worked here could live here.

“By the way, to make it sexy, commercial development in the industrial district was renamed as creative arts office space. It sounds idyllic and sounds like a lot of small businesses, supported by neighborhood uses such as cafes and coffee shops, really it is a lot of commercial development that will bring an excessive amount of traffic into Santa Monica.”

Paul said the LUCE goal of no net new traffic was good.  “I feel very strange raising all these traffic issues because that is the issue for the anti-growth people and I’m not anti-growth, but I am for being reasonable,” he said. “I also want us to look carefully at the Civic Auditorium development. There’s an advantage to remembering past promises. The parking structure on Fourth St. was built to replace the parking slated to be lost when the civic center lot was planned to become Civic Auditorium Park. But that park has dropped off the planning table. And the company that has the contract to develop the Civic has insisted on a minimum of 100 spaces adjacent to the auditorium. What happened here?”

Paul has lived in Santa Monica for 29 years. His parents lived here and were active members of the community. He is married to Ada Hollie, an educator and a member of the Santa Monica City College Emeritus College Executive Council.

Paul was at the first meeting of Mid-City neighbors and spent 14 years getting to know the City through his neighborhood activism and his public service. What he calls, “learning the ropes.” “Through these experiences I learned how to build consensus,” he said. “It can be difficult to make decisions where there are competing issues, and there is usually more than one side to any issue, but the community must be able to have a say in the protection of the city. I support the goals of the LUCE but want to help make sure we don’t kill the golden goose.”

Now, Paul, once again, is offering to serve on the City Planning Commission. He has submitted his application to the Council for their consideration and, he hopes, approval.  His willingness to serve and his understanding of the community will make his voice an important addition to the Commission. Paul speaks for many Santa Monicans when he says, “Santa Monica is an urban village, having the benefits of a village and the amenities of an urban environment and that’s what I want to protect and promote.”

What Say You? Qualified Applicants Need Not Apply

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

November 17, 2011

Qualified applicants need not apply is the take home message for many Santa Monicans who follow City Hall actions.  In the last few months the City has lost Hank Koening and Gwynne Pugh, two Santa Monica architects who served on the Planning Commission; Architectural Review Board Chair and architect Michael Folonis; Landscape Architect and Recreation and Parks Commissioner Dryden Helgoe; and Arts Commissioners Jan Williamson of 18th Street Arts Center and Asuka Hisa of the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

This unhappy rash of resignations began this summer with Gwynne Pugh responsibly seeking City Attorney advice regarding a Request for Proposals for an Urban Design project and whether or not he could apply to be considered.  Although he appropriately sought advice he anticipated being told that he could apply and that if he should be awarded the contract he would be required to recuse himself from voting and completely distance himself from participating in any City or Commission discussion of the matter.  This is the requirement under the Political Reform Act and has been the typical practice of the City.

However there is another State Law, specific to contracts, State Government Code Section 1090. (Sec. 1090) City Attorney Marsha Moutrie describes the law as “harsh, narrow and deep.”  It prohibits Board or Commission Members from participating in any City contract.  If there is a violation, the action of the Body becomes nullified and the entire contract becomes void.  Further, it is a felony and could result in incarceration.

The City Council, on June 21, 2011, heard the staff report regarding Sec. 1090, listened to public comment and, concerned by the possibility of serious consequences for the City and all parties to any contract under the jurisdiction of Section 1090, directed Staff to prepare prohibition guidelines for the City and to ensure that all Board and Commission Members and applicants were notified.  In Mayor Richard Bloom’s words, “I don’t want this to be a trap for the unwary.”

As this point, you may, understandably, be asking, “What changed?  Is this a new law?”  No, the law is not new.  What has changed is that the City of Santa Monica had entered into only a handful of Development Agreements (DA) in the past and a DA is a contract.  Sec. 1090 is specific to contracts.

Previously, development projects, including major projects, would be heard in a public review process under one of the many mechanisms in the Planning and Zoning Code such as a Conditional Use Permit or a Variance Application, a Site Plan Application, or a Specific Plan.  You get the idea – there are many tools in the Planning approval toolbox.  None of these tools is a contract. Now there are 14 major projects in the DA queue in Santa Monica and each DA is a separate contract.

The Civic Center Housing Village, the Miramar Hotel, the new downtown Cineplex, Bergamot Transit Village, to name just a few, are all in the DA queue. And all are major projects that cannot help but have a considerable impact on the scale and character of Santa Monica.

The result of Sec. 1090 is that architects and landscape architects, commissioners who bring professional training and expertise to the table, are allowed to serve on Boards and Commissions when the standard planning tools are used.  When a DA is being considered the conflicts laws regarding contracts prevail and the architect’s knowledge and perspective would no longer be heard on the Boards and Commissions.

The exception to this would be to find an experienced, professional architect or landscape architect who wanted to volunteer to serve on a Board or Commission and was not interested now, and who would agree not to be interested for the term of his or her appointment, in the biggest and most interesting architecture jobs in the City.

Don’t get me wrong here.  We need many different perspectives on our Boards and Commissions and the broadest representation of the City possible.   We need voices of neighbors and community leaders and more. But we all lose when professional voices are not at the table.

Additionally, there is an influential timing element.  As just about everyone in Santa Monica knows, the City has recently completed an extensive public process of writing a new Land Use and Circulation Element, called the LUCE.  The LUCE has been approved and now the Zoning Code must be conformed to the LUCE, a difficult and demanding task.  Planning Director David Martin estimates June of 2012 for a first draft ready to be ready for public review with final approval around the beginning of 2013.

In the interim between the passage of the LUCE and the adoption of the conformed Zoning Code many developers have chosen, or been advised by the City, to use the DA process.  The terms of the DA contract are required to be negotiated in public.  A kicker to this issue, but one to keep in mind, is that, because the DA is a contract, it can establish terms that are outside the LUCE. 

That brings us back, full circle, to the fact that the much needed expertise it will take to understand the architecture, design and land use issues being considered is not able to be at the table because the DA is a contract.

If you got this far you can see the conundrum for the City. Marsha Moutrie said, “this body of law in Section 1090 has costs for the City in terms of our ability to ensure that very well qualified people serve on our Boards and Commissions.  At the same time, this body of law preserves the public trust in government.”

In an important case regarding Sec. 1090, Thompson v. Call (1985), the Judge wrote, “The truism that a person cannot serve two masters simultaneously finds expression in California's statutory doctrine that no public official shall be financially interested in any contract made by that person or by any body or board of which he or she is a member.”  It’s hard to argue with that.

Is there a solution in sight?  One that preserves public trust, respects the law and includes the much-needed voice of experts on our Boards and Commissions.  One possibility may be to look at the cumulative environmental impacts of the 14 large development projects, all proposed to be developed in a relatively short time frame, and consider whether it would be prudent to slow down and space out the projects to lessen the construction and traffic impacts on residents, businesses and visitors.  The City would be able to so because cumulative impacts are considered under the required Environmental Review.

Doing so could mean that many, or even most, of the Development Agreements being considered might reasonably be processed using other planning mechanisms.   In that event the DA could become the exception rather than the rule and the many and highly qualified design professionals who have been such able volunteers in the service of the City could again participate in the City dialogue as Board and Commission members. 

The positives would be a lower level of disruption and congestion from the proposed developments and a higher level of public service from the many, highly talented design professionals that we are fortunate live in the City.  The negatives are that a slower timetable may create hardships for developers and for the people depending on them for income, employment, business, and the other opportunities that good development can bring.

The future scale and character of the City will be decided by these projects.  I say it’s worth discussing all alternatives and looking for the best way to continue to have all voices at the table.  We saw how important it was to the LUCE process to include the voices of design professionals.  Let’s not lose them now.

What Say You?

Contact Susan Cloke

susan@smmirror.com

Hometown Heroes: Suffragists

Meetings in public parks, speaking from makeshift platforms, using the media to get the word out - sound familiar? In 2011 it’s “Occupy Wall Street.” In 1911 it was “Votes for Women.” Different goals define each historical issue. The one constant is that, to change the status quo, people have to speak out in a major voice. 

Ms. Magazine wrote about the California suffragists, “No one could say that suffrage supporters hadn’t tried, or become overconfident and quit too soon. During the year they had overcome rain and mud, then heat and dust on the state’s primitive roads to stage debates or give speeches to even the smallest, most remote audiences. They held giant rallies–one in Los Angeles on Sept. 30, 1911 was so well-attended that hundreds were turned away after 5,000 jammed Temple Auditorium and overflowed into Choral Hall. The suffrage effort had garnered support from labor, prominent citizens, newspapers and even a few politicians, and it had matched anti-suffragists ad for ad in the newspapers. On the day of the special election, supporters began assembling at 4 a.m. to go out and stand as near as the law allowed to each polling place to give out literature to the undecided. Cars flying “Votes for Women” pennants were kept busy all day carrying sympathetic voters–all men, of course–to the polls. They rode past many blocks on which there was almost a solid yellow line of suffrage banners hung from houses, telegraph and telephone poles, and anything else to which they could be nailed or tied.”

Celebrating the extraordinary work and the success of the California suffragists, the fact that California has elected women to every level of government and is represented in the United States Senate by Senator Diane Feinstein and Senator Barbara Boxer, more than 150 people filled the auditorium of the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club to honor the work of the past, to acknowledge the gift to us, and to think about our responsibility to the future. 

Greeted by club members dressed as suffragists, and eating donuts with “Votes For Women” tags, an idea taken from photos of the 1911 rallies, the audience learned, from speeches by UCLA Professor Ellen DuBois, Librarian Virginia Elwood-Akers, and the Martha Wheelock and Jane Guthrie film, “California Women Win the Vote,” exactly how difficult it was, how much work it took, to pass the 1911 amendment to the California Constitution that made California the sixth state with women’s suffrage.

California was already ahead of the rest of the country on the issue of equality. In 1878 the California Constitution was amended, adding the following, contemporary-sounding language, “A person may not be disqualified from entering or pursuing a business, profession, vocation, or employment because of sex, race, creed, color, or national or ethnic origin.” (Article 1 Section 28); “No person shall be debarred admission to any department of the university on account of race, religion, ethnic heritage, or sex.” (Article 9). California women could go to the university and they could work, but they didn’t have the right to vote.

The 1911 election was a cliffhanger. It took several days for the vote to be tallied and victory to be declared. Initial returns had shown defeat, especially in San Francisco, and newspapers had headlined the defeat. In Los Angeles it passed by a narrow margin. According to Joanne Leavitt, President of the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica, the vote for suffrage in Santa Monica was 414 for and 361 against. The Evening Outlook, which had come out in favor of votes for women, took for itself the right of registering the first female voter in Santa Monica.

The California journalist and suffragist, Alice Park, in telling of the narrow victory, famously said on the day the final vote was tallied and the suffragists were victorious, “…. men stopped me on the street to congratulate me. Everybody seemed to approve…. No man can be found who voted no. They must have died the same day.”

The history of the Woman’s Clubs is intertwined with the story of suffrage.  Originally started to provide women a place to learn and study as well as a place to participate in civic life, they became an essential part of the movement for women’s suffrage in America.  

The Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club was formed in 1905 and included Georgina Jones and other prominent Santa Monica women in their roster.  Its first president, Elmira Stephens, is listed on the rosters of national committees organized to support suffrage. With help, in the form of a land donation from Santa Monica founder, Arcadia Bandini, the Santa Monica Woman’s Club purchased the 4th Street property and the Club is still in the same, now historic, building. Jessica Hankey, a current Woman’s Club member and officer, sees the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club as “a tremendous resource that has survived for over 100 years and is here now for the community.”

In the words of one of the SaMoHi students who attended the celebration, “What can we do at this point to get things moving toward full equality?” 

And really, isn’t that the right question for each generation to ask?

What Say You? Adoption Of The Urban Forest Master Plan Moves Closer

Imagine a city known for its trees. One with every tree well filled and every tree cared for. Trees that provide habitat for the birds of the Pacific Flyway, clean the air through their own natural processes, infiltrate storm water to protect the Bay, offer shelter, provide shade, establish a sense of place, and are intrinsically beautiful.

That’s what the DRAFT Urban Forest Master Plan (the Plan) envisions. The Plan, or a modified version of it, is expected to be adopted at the City Council meeting of Dec. 13, 2011. The Plan has been two years in the making, the product of the Urban Forest Task Force and an extensive public process.

The City’s urban forest started with the beginning of the City, with Arcadia Bandini’s gift of Palisades Park. Trees were planted as the City grew. The City Beautification Program of the 1950s created a citywide tree-planting plan and focused on tree planting. The Urban Forest Master Plan is a continuation of the work of all the people who gave the City our existing public trees. 

The “right tree in the right place” is the motto of the Urban Forest Task Force. That can be as simple as making sure the tree well is the right size for the tree to reach its full growth, provide shade, and maybe even produce fruit. 

Santa Monicans attended hearings and listed goals and concerns regarding “aesthetics, sustainability, water conservation, species diversity, the use of native trees, enhancing a walkable City, enhancing public transportation stops, expanding parkways, tree maintenance, planting fruit trees and creating public orchards.” They cited the environmental and aesthetic benefits of trees and stated an overall preference for large canopy, evergreen, flowering trees.

Criteria for tree selection were established by the Task Force and include measuring each tree for the environmental benefits of improving air quality, protecting the Santa Monica Bay through the infiltration of storm water, providing shade for people walking and bicycling, and offering habitat. 

Criteria can be complex and are sometimes competing. One criterion is the use of native trees because they grow well and provide habitat. Another criterion is the protection of iconic trees – trees that provide identity and character for a neighborhood. 

An example of the iconic function of trees can be seen on Georgina, Margarita and 19th Streets with rows of palms that are integral to the history of the neighborhoods. The trees create a sense of place and are highly valued by the residents of those streets.

Final review before City Council action on the Plan began with The Landmarks Commission meeting of Oct. 10, 2011. The Commission expressed concern, in the words of Commissioner Bach “that the Plan establish clear criteria for the enhancement and protection of areas with trees having historic and cultural significance.” The Commissioners also discussed the importance of the right street tree for each Historic District and recommended Historic District species selection should express the historic era of the District.  

The next step is the meeting of the Task Force on the Environment on Oct. 17. Expect them to review the environmental benefits and goals of the plan in the context of the Santa Monica Bay Watershed, the essential benefit of using tree wells as an opportunity to: infiltrate storm water and intercept and store rainfall thereby keeping pollutants out of the Santa Monica Bay and protecting marine life; reduce soil erosion; and provide habitat, especially for the birds on the Pacific Flyway which include the Northern Mocking Bird, Anna’s Hummingbird, the House Finch, and the Snowy Plover.

The final public hearing, before going to Council in December, will be at the Recreation and Parks Commission on Oct. 20. Look to the Commission for a review of tree selection criteria and tree species diversity, process and criteria for determining tree selection and tree removal, inclusion of specimen trees in the public landscape, trees and public health, tree canopy for protection of walkers, joggers and cyclists, and the implementation of freeway tree planting – a “freeway forest.”

“There are currently 33,800 public trees of 250 different species in Santa Monica,” said Randy Little, Public Landscape Manager for the City of Santa Monica. “We plan to plant 1700 new trees by June of 2013. Costs can vary widely, but the average cost for a new tree to be planted is about $400.00 and that includes the removal of the dead and/or diseased tree that is to be replaced.”

It is a practical and thorough plan. It sets the base for the ongoing oversight of the Urban Forest and calls for “exemplary stewardship of the forest from all who live and work here.”  

It is the community of Santa Monica and their willingness to be the stewards of the forest that will determine the success of the urban forest and give us now, and Santa Monicans to come, the right tree in the right place at the right time.

What Say You?

Hometown Hero: A Tribute to Millie Rosenstein 1914-2011

Millie Rosenstein
Photo courtesy of Paul Rosenstein

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

 “A life-long progressive, she marshaled the arguments and stood solid.  If you needed an ally, she was the one you wanted.  She had values and she had ideals and she never wavered.  I’m grateful to have known her on the picket line, working the phone banks, at city hall, at somebody’s backyard fundraiser.  She was your sweet grandmother with a warm hug, a conscience and the strength to back it up.  I will miss you, Millie.”  These words, from her friend, former Santa Monica Mayor Jim Conn, will make anyone who knew Millie smile in recognition.

Millie was born in 1914.  Her mother died in the influenza pandemic of 1919 and Millie was sent to live with her aunt.  The depression came and existence was meager.  After high school, she went to work as an office worker and soon met Herman (Gaby) Rosenstein, a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the volunteer brigade that fought against the fascists in Spain.

He was then drafted into the U.S. Army.  They decided it was time to marry, but it was December 1941 and all leaves had been cancelled because of Pearl Harbor.  They quickly found a Justice of the Peace to marry them on Christmas Eve.  When Herman was discharged from the army they lived in the projects in New York and raised their two children, Paul and Fran.  Herman worked in the electrical trades.  When the children were young Millie wanted to stay home with them. 

Her son Paul said, “My mother felt she had an unhappy childhood and she wanted to be with us and make sure we knew we were loved and supported.  When I was about 10 she decided to go back to office work.  The result was that our family made too much money to stay in the projects.  We couldn’t find affordable housing in New York; we’d been to California and liked it, so our whole family moved to California.  It was 1958, the same year the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.”

The Rosensteins lived in the Fairfax area.  They volunteered for Tom Bradley in his first campaign for the Los Angeles City Council.  They worked against the Vietnam War and supported Eugene McCarthy for president.  Paul remembers, “It was about this time Millie took an assertiveness training class offered by a women’s movement group.  It really made a difference in her life.”

That difference became apparent in the 1980’s when Millie and Herman retired and had the time to do what they wanted, to work in the community and to travel.  Millie and Herman really thrived in Santa Monica.  They became part of a close group of politically progressive seniors who influenced Santa Monicans for Renter’s Rights, its politics and philosophy.  They became members of the Santa Monica Democratic Club, where Millie served as president for eight years.  She also served on the Senior Commission, the Social Services Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women.  She volunteered for Senior Peer Counseling and for KCRW.  Millie also worked on Tom Hayden’s campaign for assembly and when Jane Fonda came to Millie’s house party for Tom’s campaign, Millie pronounced it a “highlight of my life.”

In addition to all her community work she was an avid reader and a classical music fan, often going to Sunday matinees at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.   “Millie was also an eager traveler,” said her daughter-in-law, Ada Hollie. “Travelling was a big part of her life.  I enjoyed listening to her talk about all her travels and to looking at her many photographs.  She and Herman went to China, Spain, Cuba, Egypt, Greece and Nicaragua.   She and her dear friend, Betty Mueller, went to Portugal together.

Starting in 2007, Ada and Millie played scrabble every Tuesday. “We were serious,” said Ada, “but not competitive.  And we allowed using the dictionary so we could learn new words.”

Paul said about his mother, “I saw her almost every day for the last 8 years of her life and I got to know her in a new way.  We would go to lunch or dinner every weekend.  Our roles reversed as she needed more help and it was a new relationship for both of us.  We became very close all over again.”

Millie’s life was shaped by the events of her century and she understood what that meant and felt it was her responsibility to make the world a safer and more just place for everyone.  She was an optimistic person.  She knew how she wanted to live her life and she lived that life, expressing her humanitarian philosophy, her politics, her enthusiasm and her deep and loyal love of her friends, her family, her son, Paul Rosenstein, and her daughter, Fran Alexander.

The Santa Monica community will come together at the Broad Stage on September 24^th at 3:00pm to celebrate and pay tribute to Millie Rosenstein and to rejoice that we had in our community, in the words of Patricia Hoffman, “a great ally and sometimes a great challenge. Millie was strong, feisty and opinionated and sharp to the very end of her life. She lived her beliefs.”

What Say You? The draft Bike Action Plan

The voices of Santa Monicans asking for alternatives to city traffic congestion, environmental advocates wanting to reduce Santa Monica’s carbon footprint, residents wishing to incorporate more exercise into daily life, are joining their voices to those of long time cyclists working to create a bicycle friendly city. 

City Hall has heard them, loud and clear, and the 2011 draft Bike Action Plan lays out strong goals and an ambitious implementation plan to make Santa Monica a bike friendly city.

The Bike Action Plan is self-described as both bold and practical.  And it is.  Bold in that it states strong goals of making bike riding efficient, attractive, and fun for people of all ages and abilities “to use a bike to get everywhere in the city and to meet all the needs of daily life.”  Practical, in that it lists a detailed five-year implementation plan creating infrastructure and programs to achieve immediate goals and a twenty year vision for making Santa Monica a true bicycle city.

Santa Monica Police Chief Tim Jackman said, “What I am most impressed with is that as we develop future plans for a more bike and pedestrian friendly City, a key component of planning for the changes will be continuing education for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists alike on how to safety and cooperatively navigate the City's streets.  Public safety is always the first priority.”

The Plan outlines designs and timelines for achieving a “10% mode shift” to bikes and walking, among other transportation modes, to achieve the City goal of no net new trips in peak hours.  Ideas in the Plan include using the existing city street grid to create “complete streets.”  Streets, which through design and landscape provide safe and attractive places for people to walk, bike and even to gather.  As 25% of the City land use is devoted to streets, this could make a big impact. 

Transportation choices are seen as central to quality of life ratings.  Riding a bike promotes good health and reduces transportation costs.  Being able to bike to stores is good for local employment and for residents shopping in their neighborhoods. Improving neighborhoods by providing higher quality residential streets, lower vehicle speeds and improved connections within the city are other looked for benefits.

There is great praise for the draft Plan.  Santa Monica Council Member Kevin McKeown, himself a long-time cyclist said,  “This is a plan that bike activists embrace, and that we have the funding to implement.  We set aside $2.5 million already in this year's City budget.  When this comes back to Council for final approval just before Thanksgiving, we need to focus on the 'action' part of this 'action plan."

Phil Brock, Recreation and Parks Commission Chair, has more recently become an avid cyclist.  He said,  “This catapults our city into the forefront of American bike friendly cities. Combined with bike sharing and safer streets this plan, when executed, makes Santa Monica a more livable community.”

Richard McKinnon, a long time cyclist and a member of the Recreation and Parks Commission said,  “Riding a bike is now a huge idea. You see it everywhere you travel.  This bike plan threads bikes and bike facilities onto Santa Monica streets, and into our way of doing things.  It's the blueprint to making bikes safe and easy to use for everyone who lives in Santa Monica.”

What’s next?   According to City Manager Rod Gould, “After more commission input, we will return to the Council for final adoption, along with a work schedule for the projects, programs and activities contained in the plan. Cyclist safety is a major challenge in city as densely populated as Santa Monica in the most car centric region in the country.  To improve in this area will require bike safety engineering, education and enforcement. The Council is very focused on improving in this area, and we feel that as we implement the plan, more bicyclists will feel comfortable in town given changes to the streets and driver attitudes towards them.”  

In addition to what is in the Plan, shouldn’t we, as part of our Sustainable City goals, add the goal of having all infrastructure improvements, such as landscape design and paving materials used, meet the goals of sustainability.  All trees planted will provide better air quality as well as shade for pedestrians and cyclists.  They should also be designed to improve water quality by reducing urban run off and infiltrating storm water.  Paving materials should be chosen for sustainability and safety.  Each decision has to be specific to the design and the use of a particular infrastructure improvement, but each infrastructure improvement should be designed to meet sustainability criteria.  The idea is probably already in everyone’s mind, but it would be good to state it as a principle of the Plan.

Finally, what can’t be in the plan is the most important change necessary for success, but outside the control of City Hall.  We won’t become a bicycle friendly city until cyclists and car drivers agree to share the road with patience and courtesy.  Patience and courtesy behind the wheel of a car or on a bike have to become part of the ethos of Santa Monica for the City to be a safe place to bike, and without that, the best designed infrastructure and programs will not be enough.  So, let’s make it work.

I’ll see you around town.  I’ll be riding my new, white bike!

What Say You?

Hometown Heroes: Bainbridge Islanders

August 6, 2011 Memorial Dedication Celebration
Photo credit Clarence Moriwaki

 

August 6, 2011 Memorial Dedication Celebration  Photo credit Clarence Moriwaki

Hometown Heroes:  Bainbridge Islanders

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

August 26, 2011

An hour in a day, dedicated to celebrating a story that started in WWII, healing old wounds and honoring an honorable community.  In 1942 Bainbridge Island, Washington, had a population of about 1500 full time residents. 276 were Americans of Japanese descent.

These 276 people were farmers, business people, neighbors and friends.  They were grandparents, fathers and mothers, children and babies.  Their lives changed forever on March 23, 1942 when Civilian Exclusion Order #1, issued by the Western Defense Command, required all Bainbridge Islanders of Japanese descent to be sent to Manzanar Relocation Camp.  They were given six days to be ready to leave.

On March 30, 1942 the Bainbridge Island Japanese-Americans were required by law to get on the ferry at Eagledale Harbor for their connection to the train and then the bus that would take them to Manzanar in California.

Today, at Pritchard Park on Eagledale Harbor, the site where the Japanese-American Bainbridge Islanders were forced to leave the Island, there is a Memorial Wall and Garden and it is now a National Historic Site.  The park and the memorial are the work of many local citizens, supported by grants from the state, by public grants, and by several thousand private donations. 

More than 500 members of the local community came together on August 6, 2011 to celebrate the dedication of the memorial and to honor the Japanese-American Bainbridge Islanders.  Clarence Moriwaki, a Board Member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, welcomed people and explained the Memorial Association’s motto, “Nidoto Nai Yoni."  "Let it not happen again.”

The day was sunny, skies were clear and there was a slight breeze.  On the front of the podium were the words of the Pledge of Allegiance.  Behind the speakers’ platform were the tall firs of the North West Cloud Forest.   The speakers could see out, over the assembled crowd to the path to the ferry walked by the internees so many years ago, under the guard of armed soldiers.

Dr. Frank Kitamoto, a Board Member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, also a member of the 1941 graduating class of Bainbridge High School, shared his memories of that time.  “We sold our family farm for $1.00 to friends and when, after the war, we were allowed to return, they sold it back to us for $1.00.  With the help of our friends and neighbors we were able to return to the farm and the life that my family had worked so hard to create.  We appreciate you.  We appreciate a government that works to right a grave wrong.  How special is a government that makes restitution for its mistakes.”

On the makeshift dais with Frank Kitamoto was Earl Hanson, also in the class of ’41.  He had come to Eagledale Harbor that long ago day to say good-bye to his best friend.  But the soldiers wouldn’t allow it.  He remembered the soldiers, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, making him and all the Islanders who had come to say goodbye, stand far away from their departing friends.  Mr. Hanson served in the military and told of returning home after the war’s end and of his joy at knowing that his best friend had also returned and of being together again.

The Review, the local Bainbridge paper, an award winning local paper, was renowned and sometimes reviled, for the editorials they published opposing President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, the Order that was the basis for the expulsion of the120,000 Japanese-Americans who were sent to relocation camps.  The Bainbridge Island Japanese-Americans were both the first to be sent to the camps and the last to return home.

Milly and Walt Woodward, owners and editors of The Review, wrote, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, “There is the danger of a blind, wild hysterical hatred of all persons who can trace ancestry to Japan. That some of those persons happen to be American citizens, happen to be loyal to this country and happen to have no longer a binding tie with their fatherland are factors which easily could be swept aside by mob hysteria." The Review.  December 8. 1941

Mary Woodward, daughter of Milly and Walt Woodward, spoke eloquently of her parents, saying, “The beauty of what my parents did was to create an opportunity for dialogue and an atmosphere was created where reasonable people were given an opportunity to be reasonable.”

Islanders were more than reasonable as in known through the stories told that day, of farmers taking care of the farms of others until they could return, of business owners doing the same for their neighbors, of the High School coach who, with one game scheduled during those frightening six days, benched team mates so that all the Japanese-American boys could play the entire last game, and of the empty chairs at the 1942 Bainbridge High School graduation, each one a tribute to a missing student.

Marion Konishi graduated from High School in a Relocation Camp.  She was the class valedictorian.  In her speech she said:  “Sometimes America failed and suffered…Sometimes she made mistakes, great mistakes…Her history is full of errors, but with each mistake she has learned....     Can we, the graduating class of Amache Senior High School, believe that America still means freedom, equality, security, and justice?  Do I believe this?  Do my classmates believe this?   Yes, with all our hearts, because in that faith…in that hope…is my future, and the world’s future.”

What Say You? Bainbridge Island Parks, Trails, and Farms

SUSAN CLOKE

Blakely Harbor, photo courtesy of Bainbridge Island Parks District

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror
 

Working landscapes. Across Puget Sound from Seattle, the City of Bainbridge Island owns five public farms providing sixty acres of land. Farming is part of the heritage of Bainbridge Island and the initiative for the farm properties came from the old time farmers who wanted to pass on a legacy to the next generation. Luckily, this initiative coincided with the growth of the buy local and the organic food movements and so the timing was just right for success.

“We believe having farms close by adds immeasurably to our quality of life: delicious healthy food, beautiful farmscapes, a more vibrant local economy, and a greater degree of sustainability.” --Bainbridge Island Friends of the Farms. friendsofthefarms.org

The public farms are working landscapes which dovetail with the mission of the Bainbridge Island Metro Parks and Recreation District (BIMPRD) “to build a healthy community through effective, sustainable stewardship of the district’s parks and open space, and through the development and delivery of innovative cultural and recreation opportunities.”-- biparks.org

The earliest park on the island is Fort Ward, given to the State of Washington by the military at the close of World War I.  Huge, grass lawns (no watering needed in the northwest) used as picnic and play areas, are bordered by a waterfront trail that parallels the shoreline. A forest of cedars and firs, ferns and blackberries, comprises most of the 137 acres of Fort Ward.

Under development now is Blakely Harbor, a 40-acre park, on the historically important site of Port Blakely Mill, one of the world's largest sawmills in the late 1800s. Healing Hooves Natural Vegetation Management was brought in to use goats to clear invasive weeds at the park site.-- healinghooves.com

An advisory committee made up of citizens, staff, and Bainbridge Island Land Trust members is working on the design proposal for the park. They plan to have three zones within the park. “Zone one is proposed for picnic and beach facilities, boardwalks, a parking area, and a launch for human-powered boats. Zone two for decks, footbridges, wildlife habitat restoration structures, interpretive displays and picnic areas. Zone three is planned to be a protected area with primitive facilities, and may include trails, pathways and interpretive signs.”

Yeomalt Cabin was built in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration and was recently restored. Located in the woods, the cabin is home to arts and cultural programs and performances, the most recent being a fort building camp for young children. Sue Hylen, the Arts and Cultural Manager, said she is inspired by the anonymous quote, “Art isn’t about the art, it’s about finding the creative spirit inside yourself.”

Bainbridge Island, accessed via Washington State Ferry, had a population of 23,025 people at the 2010 census. On the island there are more than 1600 acres of public park land, including forest land, beaches, playgrounds, large grassy expanses for playing soccer and other organized sports and areas for picnicking. The parks are often named for their locations on the island, such as Eagledale, Hidden Cove, and Grand Forest; there are 23 miles of forest trails; an aquatic center with separate areas for tots, water exercises, lessons, water sports, lane swimming and diving; and facilities buildings with cultural, sports, and community activities; all run by the parks district.

Privately run facilities, open to the public, include IslandWood (islandwood.org), a 225+ acre environmental education center with programs and activities for children, teens, and adults. And the Bloedel Reserve (bloedelreserve.org), the legacy of an early island logging family with 150 acres, 84 of which are second growth forest, and then there are sheep meadows, barns, and formal gardens. Concerts in the sheep meadow are not to be missed.

Every six years the park district, through meetings and surveys, asks the residents of Bainbridge Island, “What do you expect from parks and trails and all open space? What is the experience you want to take away from your experience of living/working in the community and how does it relate to your experience of parks and open space?”

According to Perry Barrett, senior planner for the parks district, there is deep support for the parks among Islanders and so, while issues can be contentious, there are certain principles that are consistent.

“The community answer is always: protect our shoreline, our natural forests and our trails, maintain our connection to nature, our connection to the sea, our connection to farming and the land,” said Barrett.

The beauty of the park in Bainbridge is in the quality of the natural environment, the stewardship of the people, the history and the values of the community.

Frederick Law Olmsted, the great American landscape architect wrote in Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns, Feb. 25, 1870, "The park should, as far as possible, compliment the town. Openness is the one thing you cannot get in buildings. Picturesqueness you can get. Let your buildings be as picturesque as your artists can make them. This is the beauty of a town. Consequently, the beauty of the park should be the other. It should be the beauty of the fields, the meadow, the prairie, of the green pastures, and the still waters. What we want to gain is tranquility and rest to the mind."

What do we want from the parks of Santa Monica?

What Say You?

Hometown Hero: The Gift of the Hero

SUSAN CLOKE
Columnist
Santa Monica Mirror

A sunny, summer day, a good day for a grandmother to push her one year old grandchild in a stroller along Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica.  Then the unthinkable occurred. It was shortly after 3:30 in the afternoon of July 11.  A man tried to take the baby from the stroller.  The baby was strapped into the stroller and the man could not get the baby out.  He then began to try to choke the baby and to tear the baby’s clothing. The grandmother defended her grandchild.  The man attacked the grandmother and punched her in the face, all the while continuing to try to get the baby.

Then the obvious, the thinkable happened.  A man who was also walking along Wilshire Boulevard came to the rescue of the grandmother and the grandbaby.  A Good Samaritan who heeded the biblical command “to show mercy.” He was able to keep the attacking man away from the baby but not without being attacked and injured himself.

I say the obvious, the thinkable, because he did what was right, he came to their aid. So how could it be that there was only one person who came to the aid of the grandmother and the baby?  They were, after all, on Wilshire Boulevard near Centinela Avenue in Santa Monica.  It was the middle of the afternoon on a nice day.  Where were the people in the nearby stores or the other people passing by on the sidewalk?  What about the many people driving by in their cars?  Thank goodness for the man who came to their rescue.  But how could it be that only one person stepped forward?  The grandmother and the baby needed help.  Their protector needed help.

There were four 911 calls, and maybe more, to the Santa Monica Police Department  (SMPD).  The police arrived at 3:41 p.m., within three minutes of the first 911 call, a longer than usual SMPD response time due to the beginning of rush hour traffic.  

The attacking man, now officially the suspect, physically attacked the first officer on the scene.  They struggled, other officers arrived, and the suspect was arrested.  He was taken to the Santa Monica Jail where he was booked for attempted murder, kidnapping, child cruelty, and assault, as well as other charges.  Bail was set at $500,000.

The police did their job and did it well.  The anonymous protector, our very own anonymous hero, did the right thing and did it without wanting recognition or reward. I am grateful for the presence of the rescuer, for his mercy, for his willingness to act and to protect the grandmother and the baby.

Not every one of us is strong enough, or well enough, or able to take on an attacker such as this suspect.  And safety is always the first concern.  But there are actions we can all take.  First, we can and should call 911 and let the attacker know we have called. If needed in order to be safe, stand on the other side of the street and yell out that you have called 911. Second, be a witness.  Watch and remember so that you can give information when asked.  If possible, be part of a group of people all calling 911 and all letting the attacker know you are all calling and all watching.

The SMPD reports, “Many suspects who engage in assaultive behavior, will stop if they know they are being watched by many who are also in the process of reporting such activity.” Again, the SMPD emphasizes, “Safety for everyone is the main concern.”

Societies have myths and heroes going back as far as history can record.  New myths and new heroes are continuously created.  Many of the adults who witnessed this assault grew up with stories of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Yoda. Many are now reading Harry Potter and know Dumbledore and Sirius Black.  Many know Superman, Batman, and Spiderman.  We need and love these myths.  We admire, even idolize heroes.

We can’t all physically fight the forces of evil.  But we don’t need to be able to physically fight to do the right thing. Heroes come in all forms.  They share qualities of empathy and mercy that move them to take action.  It is their actions that define them.

Martin Luther King Jr., a real American hero, said “Morality is like a muscle, if you don’t exercise it, if you don’t do the right thing every time you get a chance, it will atrophy and, when you need it, it won’t be there for you to use.”

I am thankful the grandmother, the baby, and the man who came to their aid are recovering well. I hope that we, as a community will always be able to rely on each other when help is needed.  I believe it is a wonderful gift to be in the right place at the right time to be able to help another person.   It is a gift to all the people involved and to the entire community.

What Say You? Thinking About Hate

May 4, 2011.  Santa Monica High School.   A brown practice dummy suspended by a rope in the wrestling team’s locker room, an African-American student chained to a locker, racial slurs being used, all are allegations currently under investigation by the Santa Monica Police Department.  Depending on the outcome of the investigation the involved students could be charged with battery and with violation of the Hate Crimes law, a serious charge with potentially severe consequences.

I was interested in what students at the school were saying and thinking.  When I asked some of the Samohi students what they thought, I got some surprising answers.  Although my sample was not large enough to be statistically significant, it was unusual in the consistency of the responses.  For example, I learned that racial ‘jokes’ happen all the time in high school.   That friends will call each other by names that, in the past, would have been considered racist, and that this will happen among students without regard to their ethnic heritage or racial identity. 

Okay.  That might be true with regard to language.  Culture changes.  Language changes to reflect the changes in the culture.  But what does this say about the actions in the locker room?

Student responses to the May 4 locker room incident seemed to divide the act into two parts - the chaining and the rope around the dummy.   Chaining students to lockers is something that has commonly been done to other wrestling team members, has been considered a prank where no one got physically hurt and has been part of wrestling team locker room culture at Samohi for a long time. 

By contrast, the rope around the dummy was understood as “horribly wrong.”  It was also characterized as “teenage immaturity” and “really bad judgment.”  It was not something that had happened before, not part of the wrestling team locker room culture.

In fact, it was a student at the school, a member of the wrestling team, who walked into the locker room, saw the dummy, saw the way the other team members were reacting, and immediately took the dummy down because he didn’t want any of his teammates’ feelings to be hurt.

The wrestling team culture, and apparently every team has its own traditions and history of pranks, has also been described as one where the team members are bonded to one another, as ‘having each other’s backs.’  It’s a demanding sport and the student wrestlers are together a lot, at practice, at tournaments and they become very close.

The wrestling team students who were involved received a suspension from school.  The wrestling team as a whole lost their locker room privileges.  They will also participate, as student teachers, in a section of the Freshman Seminar – a class designed specifically to study the hateful and violent effects of discrimination and racism and to teach tolerance and understanding to students.

So many questions must be asked and answered.  Because of the history of racial abuse in our country, allegations of racism must be taken seriously.  It will be up to the SMPD to investigate and determine the answer as to whether or not this is a hate crime. It will be up to the Sheriff’s Department to determine whether the Administration responded appropriately.

Where does all this belong in the larger culture?  What does all this say about youth/boy culture?  Is this the same thing that has been going on for years, a holdover from past concepts of masculinity? Is it bullying? Is it hazing? 

The wrestling team at Samohi is racially diverse and although, still mainly boys, girls have shown more interest and are now part of the team.  In other youth sports, when girls joined teams, their presence often changed locker room culture.  Will that pattern be repeated?

The righteous rejection of racism, the concerns of the damage and destruction caused by racism, and the fear that it is emerging at the school are all central tenets in this discussion.  The idea that the students involved will be judged, not by their actions and intent, but by the perceptions of the past, needs to be examined.  The generational change in culture needs to be understood.  There is the concern that the wrestling team, as a whole, will suffer for the actions of a few.   The school community may have to look at the possibility that they will be legally required to make decisions and take actions which are not in the best interests of the students involved, the other wrestling team members, nor of the entire student body.

It is important that these questions get asked and that, as a community, we set standards.  These are hard questions.  Questions that require careful and thoughtful examination and open discussion.

In every crisis there is also opportunity.  My hope is the school, the Board Members, the Administration, the students, the parents, and all of Santa Monica will use this as a learning opportunity to re-examine the question of racism.  Equally important to our future is that we discuss and deliberate on the events of May 4 in a principled way and that the process itself exemplifies the tolerance and empathy we hope to teach our students.

What Say You?

Hometown Heroes: Charlotte Biren and Jenna Perelman

Charlotte Biren and Jenna Perelman
BIKE IT!  STUDENTS THINKING GLOBALLY, ACTING LOCALLY

Charlotte Biren and Jenna Perelman, Santa Monica High School seniors and co- presidents of the Samohi Solar Alliance (SSA), have been thinking about the natural environment and preparing to be environmental stewards since their elementary school days.  They shine with confidence in their understanding of what needs to be done to create environmental sustainability and a commitment to get the job done right. 

 “We get huge support from the other students at Samohi,” said Biren.  Listening to Biren and Perelman, it seems the students now at Samohi have learned they need to be stewards of the environment and are preparing themselves to do just that.

As co-presidents of SSA, Biren and Perelman were lead organizers in this year’s Bike It Day.  SSA started Bike It Day four years ago to give students a way to help reduce Santa Monica’s carbon footprint.  On Bike It Day students of the Santa Monica School District bike, walk, skateboard or take the bus to school.

The first Bike It Day had fewer than 100 participants, all at the high school.  On June 1, 2011, Bike It Day this year, 3,300 students, from Santa Monica High School, Lincoln Middle School, John Adams Middle School, Santa Monica Alternative School, Edison, Franklin, Grant, McKinley, Muir, Pt. Dume, Rogers, Roosevelt and Juan Cabrillo, participated, and 700 of those students biked to school.

“When kids participate in Bike it Day they realize it’s easy and many kids start biking regularly,” said Perelman.  “Now more than 120 students bike to Samohi and we need more bike racks for daily use.”

“The event has proved to be extremely beneficial to our community, bringing together all the schools, parents, students, administration, and local businesses in an effort to combat global warming, one bike at a time,” said Richard McKinnon, a parent of a Samohi student, an avid cyclist, and Chair of Bike It Day.

“Bike It! Day has really become a citywide event, with the city helping out by putting up road arrangements and signs, and providing staff to control traffic. The Santa Monica Police Department will be out — both on cars on bikes — to keep students safe,” said McKinnon.

The Samohi Solar Alliance started in 2004 with the idea that putting solar panels on Drake pool would be good for the environment and save almost $30,000 per year for the School District.  The student members of SSA got to work, got help from parents and PTAs and community members, raised money and brought solar heat to Drake pool.  SSA’s next big project was Bike It Day.

Both Biren and Perelman went all the way through the Santa Monica School system.  Both give credit to their elementary school and junior high school teachers who took them to the beach.  By the time they got to Junior High they were taking school trips to Catalina and Yosemite to learn about ecosystems.  They measured trash on the beach, counted bird populations, and learned to gather the facts and make decisions based on science.

Thinking about her future Biren said, “I’ve studied ballet since I was 5 and I love dance.  I play the viola in the Samohi orchestra and I teach viola and I’ve tutored at the SM Library since I was in 6^th grade.  I want to continue with these activities all my life.  But I am also in love with the natural sciences.  I am a science-oriented person.  This summer I will be a volunteer intern at UCLA in a molecular biology and chemistry lab.

“I follow the work of scientists such as Shai Agassi who is using science and business power to achieve greatness in future alternative energy.  I went to hear Robert Kennedy Jr. speak about mining in the southern part of the U.S. and what that has done to the environment, the economy and people’s lives.  It makes me even more determined to use science to do good things.”

Perelman, who wears vintage clothes because “it’s better for the environment and I love them,” said, “I started biking to school in the 8^th grade on the days I didn’t have to lug my alto sax with me.  Now I bike almost every day.  Perelman volunteers with the Jewish Big Sisters and has a ‘little sister’ she mentors.  This summer she will be a counselor in training at the Jameson Ranch Camp for part of the summer and an intern in a photography studio for the other part.  She plans on a gap year between high school and college and hopes to travel to Machu Picchu before going to college where she will study environmental law.  

“I think a lot about going into politics,” said Perelman.  “I love talking to people and I love public speaking, but then again, I’m 16 and I don’t know what’s going to happen, so things could change.”

Now in a place of honor in their respective homes are  Environmental Youth Awards, which they received for their leadership in SSA.  The awards are for “outstanding achievement in environmental stewardship” and are signed, “Barak Obama, The White House, Washington D.C.”

I worry about water quality, air quality, our carbon footprint, global warming, sustainable cities, sustainable agriculture.  I worry that world governments are chasing the arguments of the last century instead of protecting our collective future.  I worry that many countries are depriving themselves of the possible contributions to society of half their populations by denying women the right to participate fully in public life. 

But after meeting Charlotte and Jenna, I worry less.

What Say You?