Hometown Hero: Margaret Bach

Documentary filmmaker, historic preservationist, writer, interior designer: Margaret Bach wove her interest in film, history, architecture and the built environment into the pattern of her life work.

In the 1970’s she worked on the restoration and historic designation of the Horatio West Court; made the documentary film, “Landscape With Angels”; received her MFA from UCLA; worked at KCET on the LA History Film Series; and worked at LACMA producing a film series showing how movies have portrayed Los Angeles.

Margaret and her husband, screenwriter Danilo Bach, a young couple in 1973, were house hunting when they learned the Horatio West Court designed by renowned architect Irving Gill was up for sale. In spite of the terrible condition of the buildings and its frightening occupancy by drug addicts, the Bachs and three other couples decided to restore the buildings as a place to live. On the day escrow closed, City police, who were all too well aware of the problems on the site, showed up to oversee the safe transfer of the property from the squatting drug addicts to the proud and hopeful new owners.

When the City of Los Angeles planned to sell the Bertram Goodhue designed Los Angeles Central Library, Margaret worked on the LA AIA report, “The Light of Learning”, a history and defense of the Library. Out of the effort to save the Library, the Los Angeles Conservancy was founded. Margaret was both a founding member and, in 1978, its first president. An interesting historical footnote is that Ruthann Lehrer was the first Executive Director of the LA Conservancy and both Margaret and Ruthann now sit on the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission.

The first time Margaret sat on the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission, Clo Hoover was Mayor. Margaret turned her attention and support to the South Beach Tract, the General Telephone building on Barnard (now the Eli Broad Art Foundation building), and the 3^rd Street Development Corporation. That work contributed to the preservation of the South Beach bungalow neighborhood, the stopping of the faux facelift planned for the old telephone switching station, and the renewal of the 3^rd Street Promenade.

The Bachs moved from the Horatio West Court in the 1980’s and looked for another ‘fixer upper’ that could accommodate their growing family. They bought the house of the early 1900’s Santa Monica developer and realtor, Frank Bundy. Over the years they restored and added to the old house.

With two sons, Margaret focused on contributing to the schools, including serving as PTA President at Roosevelt and, after her sons went to college, working on the renovation of Barnum Hall. Margaret wrote grant applications, including the application for the restoration of the Barnum Hall fire curtain designed by the well-respected Southern California artist, Stanton McDonald-Wright, as part of the WPA artists program.

Continuing her interest in the built environment, Margaret agreed to be a grant writer for St. Johns Hospital after it was damaged in the 1994 earthquake. She also used her knowledge of architecture and her writing skills at the office of Santa Monica architects Hank Koning and Julie Eizenberg.

She is the author of “Cottages in the Sun”, publication date March 2010, and now has her own design studio. margaretbachdesign.asidla.org “I have a clear, childhood memory of the Santa Fe Super Chief. Although I wasn’t old enough to know the train I was riding on was in the Streamline Moderne Style, I knew the train was beautiful and I was captivated by the colors of the train, the colors of the southwest. Being on the train I felt a complete sense of wellbeing and balance, which is what I try to accomplish through my work.”

Margaret names Palisades Park as “one of the great places in the world. It is a place that matters and the places that matter will only be preserved when people care.” And it’s just like “Maggie,” as her long time friends call her, that her favorite tableware, from the vintage Edwin Knowles China Company, is named the “Santa Monica” pattern.

What Say You: A City Defined By Its Landmarks

Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, one of the original Ranchero owners and part of a powerful family, gave the City, then just a few years old, our now iconic Palisades Park. City Hall, designed in the streamline moderne style by Donald Parkinson, was a WPA project. Irving Gill, one of California’s most important architects, designed the Horatio West Courts.

Built in 1919 the Horatio West Courts on Hollister were a forerunner of the modern style in architecture. By the early 1970’s they had fallen into complete disrepair. As a young couple, Margaret and Danilo Bach, had the vision and the courage to move in and begin the restoration of the Courts. And by so doing saved the Courts for all of us.

Santa Monica now has over 90 landmarked buildings. This past Sunday,
I joined 25 other Santa Monicans on a Santa Monica Conservancy tour led by Marcelo Vavala, who is an architectural historian and a past president of the Conservancy. Among the 45 we saw: the Strick House on La Mesa, a mid-century modern building, designed by the world famous architect Oscar Neimeyer; the adobe house on 4th and Georgina, designed by John Byers; the Pier, another WPA project; the Georgian and Shangri La hotels; the Lido, an Art Deco hotel; Phillips Church, a cultural monument; the Spanish Colonial Revival Sovereign apartment hotel; and many bungalows and cottages.

A1901 beach bungalow is now home to Joel Brand, Kristina Deutsch and their sons. Joel Brand, also a past president of the Conservancy, only learned how important historic preservation was to him after he moved to Santa Monica. “Friends started to point out the importance of older buildings in our urban landscape, I realized that Santa Monica is defined by these historic treasures. This architecture plays a large part in fostering the small town, neighborly sensibilities that makes our community such a wonderful place to call home. I see that play out on my street, in my neighborhood and across the city and it's the silent foundation upon which is built so much that is wonderful about Santa Monica.”

“Santa Monica is one of California's most architecturally, culturally, and historically significant communities,” states Conservancy President Carol Lemlein. “The Conservancy is a strong voice for preservation. We train docents for the Beach House, we are working to provide a Preservation Resource Center in the Shotgun house, and, under a Cultural Affairs grant, will offer docent guided tours of Palisades Park this coming spring.”

Importantly, as advocates for preservation, the Conservancy speaks for preservation to be part of the new LUCE (Land Use and Circulation Element). Representing the Conservancy’s 400 members, Carol Lemlein has asked “that historic preservation be clearly articulated as a community value and that the LUCE specifically refers to historic preservation as an essential part of neighborhood preservation.”

In the LUCE workshops it is clear that preservation values have broad support among City residents. Margaret Bach, now a Landmarks Commissioner and the Founding President of the Los Angeles Conservancy, suggests that we join the goals of creating housing with historic preservation, “a rethinking of our existing housing stock to understand how we could express the City’s goals for affordable and work force housing through the preservation of existing buildings – preserving and enhancing a sense of place, landscape and green space as we create more opportunities for affordable and workforce housing at the same time that we protect the character of our neighborhoods.”

“The City is listening.” Francis Phipps, the LUCE consultant on Historic and Neighborhood Preservation, explains “the LUCE treats historic preservation as a central measure to protect the character of Santa Monica as it has evolved over time through preservation of landmark buildings, in a formal process, and through the creation of Conservation Districts, in a neighborhood process.”

Once again, Santa Monicans have spoken in favor of the buildings and places that create our sense of place, our collective past and our desire to carry our values into the future. So what say you? Sunday brunch on the porch of a bungalow, a drink at the Shangri LA, a family afternoon on the Pier, toddler story time at the Ocean Park Library, a run in Palisades Park?

Hometown Hero: Kesha Ram, Member, Vermont House of Representatives

Montpelier, Vermont. “I remember walking with my grandmother, who lived with us, to the Big Blue bus stop on 14^th and Montana. We took the bus to Douglas Park with its pond and swings. On Saturday, if there was a show for kids, we walked to the Aero.”

Now Kesha serves in the Vermont legislature. “Half of the eight thousand registered voters in my district are between 18 and 25. I feel strongly about involving young voters and I feel I know and understand what the community needs. Also, being at the bottom of the ticket, when Obama was at the top, definitely helped.”

Winning meant a seat in Vermont’s 150 member House of Representatives. Pay is $10,000/year. They are in session five months of the year. “Because it takes some personal sacrifice, only people who really want to serve run for office. Vermonters wouldn’t have it any other way, they feel strongly about direct democracy.”

The other seven months of the year Kesha works as a legal advocate at “Women Helping Women”, a domestic violence non-profit. “It’s wonderful work and it’s enough salary for me right now.”

Kesha got her start in public service in her first grade class at Roosevelt Elementary in Santa Monica. She was a proficient reader and her teacher asked her to work with the students who needed help because English was their second language. “She knew that my father had immigrated from India to study engineering at UCLA and that made her think I would be sympathetic to the immigrant children. I loved helping them. I loved how it made me feel.”

Kesha joined the choir in 4^th grade and stayed in the choir all the way through her years at Lincoln Middle School and at SAMOHI. She never missed a Stairway to the Stars. She was the Environmental Affairs Coordinator on SAMOHI Student Government and worked with the PTA to start the school recycling program.

Graduating in 2004 from SAMOHI in a class of 1200 students she wanted a new experience and so applied to colleges in Alaska, Canada and New England. “The good news for me is that these schools were all interested in having a young, woman of color from California in their school. I chose University of Vermont (UVM, Founded 1791). I felt I could be the person I wanted to be there and they gave me a full scholarship.”

She took her Santa Monica values with her to Vermont; first as a freshman activist, then as a member of student government in her sophomore, junior and senior years. “Student government had lots of slots for class representatives and so it wasn’t overly hard to be elected. “

In 2006 then Sen. Obama came to UVM to give a speech in support of Bernie Saunders in his bid for the US Senate. “They asked me to introduce Obama as everyone else on the dais was going to be male and they wanted to have a female student leader on the dais.”

In her senior year, she ran for student body president. “It was a seven-way race. Other candidates put their energy into fliers and signs. I put my energy into making personal contacts. I would stand on campus and stop every tenth student to introduce myself and ask them about their experience at UVM. I won that election and was the first person of color and the seventh woman to be student body president.”

Kesha graduated UVM in 2008 with a BA in political science and a BS in natural resource planning after four years of study and student activism.

In the Vermont Legislature she is sponsoring a green jobs amendment to the Economic Development Omnibus Bill and is working to get the Abenaki Tribe officially recognized so they can label crafts as authentic products of the Tribe and can also seek Federal Grants.

Her roots are in Santa Monica going back, through her mother to the rich, cultural and political heritage of the Jewish community of Eastern Europe; through her father to the democratic movements of India; and through her Great, Great Grandfather, Sir Gunga Ram who was the Chief Engineer of India. He is remembered as a philanthropist who built schools for girls and who built hydroelectric dams at a time when India was in desperate need of infrastructure.

“Since my first elected office as Student Council President at Roosevelt (5^th grade) I’ve always had a passion for politics. There are no term limits in Vermont, so I will seek reelection in 2010 and then, we’ll see. At age 23, I’m so very happy to be where I am and to see where it takes me. It’s an exciting feeling. Who knew that a 23-year-old young woman from Santa Monica could be elected to the Vermont House. Yet, here I am. And if I can, so can you.”

What Say You: The Stone Whisperer

The stone whisperer is what Vermonters call Hiram. A Vermonter descended from the Abenaki, an Algonquin tribe, he taught himself to build the stonewalls that make him so respected in this community. “The hardest part is letting the rocks be what they are, because they’re not going to fit the way we want them, they’re going to fit the way they want. It took me a long time to learn that.”

If the stonewalls are the iconic image of old Vermont, wifi is still in its future. There is definitely no wifi in my cabin at High Lake (and no phone and no cell phone reception). However, the beautiful, historic Morrill Memorial Library is in Strafford, a few miles away, through forests of oak, maple and birch and past open meadows with grazing horses, and all Vermont libraries have wifi.

With no Vermont address, no Vermont phone number and no one to vouch for me, the librarian loaned me the “Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”. It was a perfect book to read on the screen porch overlooking High Lake.

On the way to the library is Rose’s farm stand. I’d want to go in, but no one would be there. One day I saw people inside, went in, introduced myself, and said how glad I was they were open.

“Open, what do you mean?” asked Rose. She then told me the door to the screen porch was always open. I should help myself to whatever fruits, veggies, home made pies and whatever else I wanted and leave my money on the table. Are you in shock yet?

When I returned to the library to check email again and to return the book, there was a small group of people sitting around the fireplace. Looking at the gray and white haired men and women I thought, at first, they were all elderly. They were discussing “The Reader”, a book I had read, and I shamelessly eavesdropped. There was a white haired man who well remembered WWII and there were people many years younger with gray and white hair. Vermonters, at least in this part of Vermont, don’t color their hair no matter what age they are when they go gray. I stopped thinking about hair and dual-tasked, answering email and paying attention to their comments on the book. When they were leaving I confessed my eavesdropping and told them I had learned a lot from listening to them. They protested that I should have joined them and invited me to their next meeting.

I miss Santa Monica, my friends, my neighbors, the beach, everything that’s fun and interesting and great about Santa Monica. But it wasn’t that long ago that Santa Monica was so much easier to navigate than it is now. We had fewer rules and, even though it’s hard to believe, we had more people, yet we had less traffic.

I know we can’t make Santa Monica into rural Vermont. Nor do I want that. But I wonder if we couldn’t reclaim some of the personal, some of the helpfulness that we seem to have discarded when we made the hyperspace leap to hip and cool. Those are the kind of thoughts you have when you spend two weeks in the quiet of the forest on a lake with water clean enough to drink.

It’s early morning. The mist is clearing. The ducks are still here, and the herons, and the hawks. For any of you who wonder whether this is time travelling or vacationing, the next ‘What Say You’ will have a Santa Monica byline.

Hometown Hero: Mark Gold

“I was a loud mouthed planning student at UCLA in 1986. Dorothy Green, the founder of HTB, was a guest speaker and she asked for volunteers. I was working toward my Environmental Science and Engineering Doctorate at UCLA’s School of Public Health and I threw myself into fieldwork on public health, storm water pollution and sewage pollution issues. Dorothy then offered me the organization’s first paid job.Her amazing act of trust and faith set me on the path I have followed ever since. Dorothy became my role model, my mentor and the closest of friends.” Mark Gold, now the Executive Director of Heal the Bay. (HTB)

HTB became a constant driver of water quality improvement in the Santa Monica Bay and in California. California established criteria for water quality protections: requiring monitoring, public notification of water pollution and, most importantly, setting standards to protect public health.

The Federal Beach Act of 2000 followed the California model and both HTB and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) worked with EPA to implement the Act. HTB, NRDC and the Santa Monica Baykeeper have also worked with the State and Regional Water Quality Control Boards on regulations (called TMDLs) that set standards for reducing bacterial, pathogen and trash pollution of the beaches and ocean. “Due to the TMDLs, water quality, at local beaches, during the summer, is much cleaner than it was 5 years ago. Winter is a longer term success, as we clean up fecal bacteria and toxic metals, that’s the last piece of the puzzle in healing the Bay.”

Mark’s community contributions include his 18 years as Chair of the City
of Santa Monica Environmental Task Force. The Task Force has been the incubator for much of the important environmental work done in Santa Monica. The Green Building program, water conservation, storm water infiltration, and Measure V all started with the Environmental Task Force. “Being on the Task Force allowed me to learn from the people who are experts in green energy, sustainable building practices, sustainable landscape and climate change.”

Santa Monica is now working to implement green infrastructure that captures stormwater and infiltrates it back into the aquifer. “The Beach Green is a great example. People are always there, playing and picnicking and it keeps polluted water out of the Bay. The public loves the Beach Green. Bicknell Street is another example of green infrastructure that captures and infiltrates rain water, improves air and water quality, and provides habitat while fulfilling its basic use as a street. All Santa Monica streets should be green streets.”

“We have focused successfully on City policies and it is past time for us to tap into the energy and commitment of the residents and the business community. I went to SAMOHI; my son is going to SAMOHI. It’s great to be a part of a community for that long and I know the talent and resources that the community is ready to bring to environmental and sustainability issues.”

“Polluted runoff remains the largest source of pollution to our nation’s coastline. I was fortunate enough work on the first ever health effects study on swimmers at urban runoff contaminated beaches. We found that people who swam at runoff-contaminated beaches were far more likely to get stomach flu and upper respiratory illness. That epidemiology study was truly impact science – science that changes the way decision makers make decisions to protect public health and the environment,” Mark said during a commencement speech he delivered at UCLA urging the graduates to get involved.

“My experience at Heal the Bay has demonstrated that science combined with activism can have a beneficial impact. Yet, never in my lifetime, has there been greater American disdain for science with such tremendous potential local, national and global consequences.”

Heal The Bay. http://www.healthebay.org

What Say You: “Stadium to Sea” LA Marathon 2010

Do you dream of being a Marathoner? The time is now to buy your (eco friendly) running shoes. LA Roadrunners, the official training program for the LA Marathon starts its 27-week training program on September 12. 2009. Registration online begins September 1, 2009 for both the LA Marathon (www.lamarathon.com) and LA Roadrunners (www.laroadrunners.com).

For the first time in the LA Marathon’s 25 year history the victors, and the anticipated 25,000 other racers, will cross the finish line in Santa Monica, at the sea.

“Stadium to the Sea” is the historically evocative and geographically descriptive title of the 2010 LA Marathon, Dodger Stadium, home of the LA Dodgers, and the site of the historic shame of the Chavez Ravine evictions will be the starting place for the March 21, 2010 Los Angles Marathon.

Along the route, up to 1,000,000 fans will line the streets to cheer on runners as they run past the famed neighborhoods and iconic sites of Los Angeles, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica. The proposed course has runners entering Santa Monica on San Vicente at 26th turning south on Ocean Avenue to Pico and then continuing south on Barnard to approximately Ocean Park Boulevard. The race will end with celebrations and a festival in the beach lots. The Council has approved allowing the Marathon to come to Santa Monica but the final racecourse is still to be negotiated between the cities and the race organizers.

In keeping with the City commitment to sustainability, the 2010 LA Marathon has announced it will be the world’s first major-city marathon to achieve green certification with the Council for Responsible Sport (ReSport). Bruce Rayner, Chief Green Officer for Athletes for a Fit Planet, worries about “green wash” (the practicing of talking an environmental talk, but not walking an environmental walk) promotes the ReSport certification process establishing standards race organizers and athletes must meet. “I’d like to see the day come when athletes demand that event organizers and the companies that support them are environmentally responsible.”

Green certification will be complete after ReSport officials observe the race day for ridesharing and the use of public transportation, beach cleanup, the use of bio-diesel power generators, compostable paper cups, no plastic goody bags, and recycling throughout the event. Marathon organizers say this will do away with a staggering 50,000 plastic bags and nearly 1,000,000 pieces of paper.

LA Marathon organizers are guaranteeing to pay the full cost of all Santa Monica City services from the day the contract is signed to the taking down of the last barricade on race day and guaranteeing a substantive community outreach effort to establish services and resolve conflicts for businesses and residents along the route. They are also holding out the promise of more than $20 million in revenue to City businesses, over a five-year period, with a focus on hotels and restaurants.

Santa Monica’s own Heal the Bay, Sojourn Shelter and Our Students Run LA (a regional program which includes PAL members) are already part of the official charities program. In past years Marathon runners have raised more than $1.5 million for charities.

Look for this item to be on the Council agenda in early September as the City discusses short and long-term benefits as well as short and long term impacts, and works out the policies and practices needed to participate in the production of an event of this complexity and magnitude.

Hometown Hero: Gene Oppenheim

When Gene Oppenheim goes grocery shopping in Santa Monica, people often come up to him and stick out their tongues. It’s not a sign of disrespect, it’s because he has been a family doctor in Santa Monica since 1980.

Gene received his M.D. and Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from UCLA. After residency he and his wife, Patricia Hoffman, went house hunting and bought the house they still live in on Harvard Street in Santa Monica.

He decided to open a solo practice and for ten years his offices were on Yale and Wilshire. During those years he also served on the Ocean Park Community Center Board and was a physician for the Sojourn Battered Women’s Center and for Stepping Stone, a center for abused and deserted children. Gene was appointed to the City of Santa Monica Commission for Older Americans and remembers holding a press conference, with then Assemblyman Tom Hayden, but no reporters came! Just as they ended, the reporter from the Evening Outlook rushed in and so they had a redo of their speeches. The next day, the banner headline on the paper read, “Santa Monica Nursing Homes Refuse Medi-Cal Patients.”

At the same time that Gene had his medical office and was doing health care volunteer work, the insurance companies were creating managed care organizations. Gene said, “the work of dealing with the insurance companies was resource and time consuming and doctors formed group practices in order to be as efficient as possible in the administration of their offices so they could focus on the practice of medicine.”

When he looks at medicine today he sees “Wasted money, money that isn’t used for health care. It goes to profits for company executives and stockholders, the costs of underwriting – which are all the expenditures spent by insurance companies to identify only the healthiest people to insure, and administrative costs.”

He saw the managed care organizations as making it more difficult for him to give his patients the quality of care he wanted to provide and he decided to become a Kaiser doctor. “Kaiser is the way medicine should be practiced. It is an integrated system and more efficient. Doctors are on salary and so not paid by the number of patients they see or the number of tests they order. It is a good way for patients to get better care and to save money at the same time.”

His concern for the quality of health care in the U.S. made him decide to join the California Physicians Alliance, part of the National Physicians Alliance. They support single payer health insurance for all Americans as they think it is the only realistic answer to the question of how to deliver high quality medical care and keep the costs of health care from harming the national economy. As part of this group he has visited Congressman Waxman’s office to talk about single payer health insurance. Members of the National Physicians Alliance attempted to testify in the Washington Senate hearings.

All three of Gene’s sons do volunteer work. Jed at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lucas on Civil Rights and First Amendment cases for Santa Monica Attorney Carol Sobel, and Jonas as a writing mentor for the Virginia Avenue Project. Gene’s wife Patricia currently chairs the Community Corp of Santa Monica, an affordable housing provider and is Chair of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights. She is a former President of the Santa Monica Malibu Board of Education.

Gene remembers looking out the window of a west facing birthing room at Santa Monica Hospital at a spectacular 4th of July fireworks celebration. He is no longer delivering babies, but he continues to practice medicine and to work for high quality health care.