Hometown Hero: Sheila Kuehl

You may have seen the 1964 red Porsche Cabriolet 356C being driven around Santa Monica by a shorthaired woman with an impish smile. Originally bought when she was Zelda on the Dobie Gillis show, it now has 523 thousand miles on it. If you’ve seen the car, you’ve seen Sheila James Kuehl.

Many of you know her as the Assembly Member and State Senator representing Santa Monica. “Being in the legislature was the best job I ever had. It was an opportunity to do big, overarching change in family law, domestic law, and environmental law. The canvas is so huge. The sheer variety of the issues is compelling.”

When she was in the Senate, Sheila twice introduced a bill for single payer health insurance, once in 2006 and again in 2008. Each time the bill passed out of both houses of the California Legislature. Each time Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill.

“We moved the concept of single payer insurance from a pie in the sky idea to a credible, well drafted, fully developed, serious concept. And our work has had an effect on other states. Now California needs a governor who will sign a single payer health insurance bill.”

When asked about working with Governor Schwarzenegger, Sheila said, “He is an irresponsible governor because he doesn’t understand the virtue of the law. His administration is chaotic. And, unlike the Wilson or Davis administrations, his staff doesn’t work with legislators to resolve differences in bills.”

Sheila’s path to acting and politics started when her family moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles. Sheila was two. By the age of eight she was taking lessons in drama and tap dancing. The instructor told Sheila’s parents that their child was talented and asked if Sheila could read for a part on the Penny Williams radio show. That was the beginning of Sheila the actor. Sheila loved acting and she loved school.

Acting gave her confidence. She went to public school and she had a teacher on the set. She worked 16-17 weeks out of the year, earning $275 per week. Encouraged by her teacher at the studio, Sheila enrolled at UCLA in 1957 with a major in Theater Arts, the first in her family to go to college.

She became famous playing Zelda on the Dobie Gillis show. That job ended and the pilot for a show written especially for Sheila wasn’t picked up. “I worried that my acting career was over and I was devastated. It was the lowest point in my life. Since I was 8 all I had ever wanted was to be an actress.” The gossip in Hollywood was that the network executives thought Sheila seemed ‘too gay.’

“ I was in my late twenties and, like most humans, I didn’t know much about myself then. My sexuality was confusing to me and my political ideas unformed.” Needing work, she took a job at UCLA, at the height of the student movement, advising student organizations and said she felt “it kind of saved my life.” Her students advised her to go to law school. She started Harvard Law in 1975.

“Harvard was a revelation to me. It was the best intellectual training of my life. I became a disciplined thinker, thinking clearly and creatively. Justice is an exciting endeavor.”

Thurgood Marshall was the Presiding Judge at the Harvard Moot Court when Sheila was awarded ‘Best Oralist’ and Justice Marshall came off the bench and said to her, “Lady, I like your style.”

Also, at Harvard, she had a relationship with another law student who was openly lesbian. It was because of that relationship that Sheila felt “she was able to come out, slowly, to family and friends, one at a time.”

She returned to LA and a series of jobs in law firms working on family law, domestic violence and other legal issues where she could combine her love of the law and her commitment to social justice. But it was the California Women’s Law Center, which Sheila co-founded, whose purpose was to develop feminist theory and apply it to the law, that gave her a place to use all her legal and organizing skills working with local, state and national organizations on shaping laws regarding domestic violence.

Sheila and her then partner, Torie Osborn, lived on Pearl Street, where she still lives. She volunteered for the Sojourn Shelter for Battered Women. In 1979 she was asked to form the Sojourn Board, which she chaired for 15 years.

“Late January1994 Assemblyman Terry Friedman announced he wouldn’t run again. Filing date was two weeks away, on February 9. Folks were encouraging. Feb 9 is my birthday. I decided it was a good omen.”

Sheila served for six years in the assembly and eight in the Senate. “Because I had a safe seat, I raised money for other democratic candidates. The most fun was when I wrote the lyrics for a “Wizard of Oz” fundraiser. Even the Los Angles Times pronounced it ‘very clever’ and we raised lots of money.”

“My plan for the far future is to run for Zev’s seat when he is termed out in 2014. Right now, I’m looking for my next job. But I will always be committed to the issues of social justice.”

What Say You: Ken Genser, Community Champion

The language of Politics is one of images and ideals as well as practicalities and compromises. Our culturally shared image of the ideal of the “people’s politician”, as expressed by the Frank Capra movies, was expressed in real life by Ken Genser. In Ken, Santa Monica truly had a public servant, a representative of the people. He paid attention to and cared about the problems of each individual who asked him for help. He loved Santa Monica, he identified with Santa Monica, and he dedicated himself to its present and its future.

In a time when communication is depersonalized and voice mail and being on hold are ubiquitous, Ken answered the phone himself. He came to the house to talk to you, to see the problem firsthand. He interceded, respectfully, on your behalf, if that was necessary. People believed he was their champion and, in turn, they championed him.

So it is only right that we honor Ken’s memory. He will be credited, and rightfully so, with contributions to housing and city planning, to saving Sea Castle and to promoting renter’s rights, to supporting education and city/school partnerships. These are issues. How issues are decided and how they are implemented impact our daily lives. But in my mind his most valuable contributions were to the continuation of our identity as a community, as a place where individuals are important and where there is attention to every voice and a place for all to participate in self-governance.

These intangible qualities make an everyday difference in how connected we feel to one another and in how connected we feel as citizens of Santa Monica. The continuation of these values is how I want to honor Ken Genser’s memory.

In the coming decade the Expo line station will be built in downtown Santa Monica. The Expo line will bring people to Colorado and 4th. When they arrive, they will see the stores of the new Santa Monica Place, redesigned after a lengthy and robust public process; it will connect City Hall and the Civic Center to the 3rd Street Promenade. Across from City Hall will be a new park, the ‘front yard’ to City Hall, connecting City Hall to the Beach, the Pier and Palisades Park. And, under discussion right now, is the possibility of building a new museum near the Civic Auditorium for the Broad collection.

If we do all this work right these projects will be designed to be physical connectors between the major public buildings and places in the City. We will have created new buildings and public spaces that express our spirit and our values. For that to happen we must continue our current high level of public participation in our City decision-making process. We must continue our commitment to being a community.

Wonderfully, if we choose to honor Ken Genser by staying strong as a community of people, by making sure that all the work that is to come expresses our values and our spirit, we will also protect our collective future.

Hometown Hero: Maureen Craig

Hometown Hero: Sister Maureen
Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth

Maureen Craig had a plan to go to Paris and write the great American novel and be like Zelda Fitzgerald, minus all the mental problems, and then come back to America to be a nun. She went to talk to Mother Mary Ancilla, the brilliant leader of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, who suggested she be more realistic. Maureen decided she would “give up on Paris and get started on saving the world.”

She had always thought nuns were “kind of weird. But my college teachers, all nuns, were bright, articulate and committed to service. I so admired them. I wanted to be like them.”

Sister Maureen taught elementary and high school. One year, the star of the first grade creation play, who was supposed to play God, got sick. His substitute, and please remember that first graders are very truthful, faced the audience bravely and said, “I am not the real God, the real God got sick and threw up and went home.” Sister says that’s a story she often tells.

“I had been teaching for 35 years and was diagnosed with MS and teaching was getting harder. Sister Marie Madeline invited me to Saint Johns to write the history of the hospital, which I did. “The Golden Promise” was published in 1992 in honor of the golden jubilee of Saint John’s Hospital.

“Now, at 76, I’m not afraid of much. I’m not afraid of illness. I’ve been there and done that. I’ve had MS for a long time and I’m doing that and I’m not afraid of death. “I think we need a national health care plan. It is a disgrace that, in America, we have anyone without health care. Congress has great health care for themselves. Why aren’t they making sure we all have the same?

“I teach new employees at the hospital, and the center of my teaching is that respecting the dignity of each person is the core of care at St. Johns. Respect the dignity of each patient and each family and all who work here. “It’s an honor to be brought into people’s lives in a time of crisis. My title is, Chaplain to the Foundation, but I introduce myself as Sister Maureen, and say I’m here to help and I ask if there is anything they need.

“My father was an Irish immigrant who was put on the boat by the British police after the 1916 Easter Monday Rebellion and exiled to Canada. Father then walked across the border at Niagara Falls with a group of America tourists. He was an illegal immigrant with a PH.D in political science from Magdalen College at Oxford. He and my mother met when he was giving a speech about Free Ireland. They married and had ten children.

“We children were wild and happy. We played outside until dark when our daddy whistled for us to come home. Every father had a whistle that his children recognized. I think all children, by law, should have at least two hours a day to be free outside, to just look at the world and to play.

“I came to St. Johns in 1987, joining the nuns living and working at the hospital. There had been as many as 25 nuns at St. Johns in the early years. Now there are 5 nuns and we all live in the same apartment house right across the street from the new hospital.

“Every day I get up early, say my prayers, visit with patients and with the new babies and their families. It’s a privilege to be with people at profound moments. Then I go to mass and have lunch in the hospital cafeteria. After lunch I need to rest because of the MS. Around 4:00 the other nuns come back from work, we say our prayers, eat dinner together and spend the evening talking. It’s been a great life to live in community with women who are so smart, are wonderful leaders and care for one another and for the world.

“I love this City and I love my work and I love my life. I try to be a good citizen. I don’t litter and I vote.”

What Say You? Here’s to Your Health!

“Right now the rest of the developed world is spending less money and getting better health care,” said Marcia Angell M.D. testifying for Single-Payer Health Care at the Senate Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Hearing.

Health Insurance is on the national agenda because it’s breaking the national economy. But it is also a highly personal and individual problem. Are you worried about your health care? If you are, stay healthy. It’s your best option. Healthy people can buy health insurance. Anyone deemed a risk by the insurers pays higher costs for the same coverage. People who are ill often lose their health insurance.

Entering the debate is Physicians for a National Health Plan, a single-issue organization dedicated to education and advocacy for comprehensive, universal, single payer health insurance. Founded in 1987 by David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, both primary care physicians and both professors at Harvard. PNHP now has 17,000 members, 900 in the Los Angeles area. (www.PNHP.org)

Santa Monica physicians Matt Hendrickson, Gene Oppenheim, Geoff White, Nancy Greep and Steve Tarzynski, joining thousands of American physicians frustrated by insurance companies getting in the way of providing good care for patients, started a Santa Monica chapter of PNHP. Sheila Kuehl, the author of the groundbreaking bill for single payer in CA, twice passed by both houses of the CA legislature and twice vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger, spoke at their first event.

Dr. Hendrickson, (matt@singlepayer.org) says, “We need single payer. We are the only developed nation with a for profit health insurance system. The current proposals in the House and Senate bills do provide some relief. They will remove pre-existing conditions as an opportunity for health insurers to refuse coverage and there may be a public option open to some people. At the same time most Americans will be required to buy insurance, which will hugely benefit the insurance companies.”

“Tragic and touching,” is how Dr. Hendrickson characterized his volunteer work at the Forum for the RAM (Remote Area Medicine) event. “People waited all night, sleeping on bleachers that had been set up in the parking lot, for a chance to get free medical service. This was a sad first for California and we must do better.”

“The American health system in uniquely expensive and inflationary. Last year we spent about $2.5 trillion on health care and costs are growing much faster than the background inflation rate. Our system is unsustainable. And, if that weren’t enough, we don’t get anywhere near our money’s worth.” said Dr. Angell, PNHP member, Harvard Medical School Faculty and former Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine.

The Health Insurance debate is central to our nation’s economic future and to our personal futures. In this country with its well-trained physicians, its great medical schools and its impressive history of contributions to medicine we have every reason to expect the best in health care. But we need more than training the best doctors; we need the best access.

Speaking to that point, on May 5, 2009, Dr. Margaret Flowers and seven other doctors went to D.C. The Senate Finance Committee had convened a round table of 15 experts. PNHP had requested a seat at the round table and Committee Chairman Senator Baucus had refused. He did not include any advocate for single payer. So they went to our nation’s capitol to testify. Not only were they not allowed to speak, they were arrested. You can watch the un-American spectacle of Senator Baucus calling in the Capitol police to arrest the physicians as they stood at the hearing and requested to speak to the committee. (YouTube)

Our president said, on July 22, 2009, “I want to cover everybody. Now, the truth is unless you have what’s called a single-payer system in which everyone’s automatically covered you’re probably not going to reach every single individual.” Barack Obama

What Say You? Are you healthy? Do you worry about health insurance?
What do you think we should do?

Hometown Hero: Fran Pavley

“The budget is a disaster. School cuts are just a tragedy. Higher tuition costs limit access for students and cost us our future.” State Senator Fran Pavley www.franpavley.gov

Fran, who represents Santa Monica in the California Senate, talks about the real cost of doing nothing to reduce global warming and the real cost of doing nothing to protect our environment in a ‘just the facts, Ma’am’ kind of way.

Her priority problems: the melting snow pack; the rising sea level; the effect of temperature on both human health and our crops; the loss of watersheds, wetlands and our water reliability.

As to the ‘Cost of Doing Nothing’ Fran says, “Opponents claim a false choice between the economy and the environment. The fact is the state will suffer tens of billions of dollars per year in direct costs to real estate assets alone due to sea level rise, wildfires, and to intense weather events.”

But with Fran there is no such thing as doing nothing. Famous for her groundbreaking legislation on curbing emissions from autos, she is equally adept at working on water quality as air quality and as Chair of the Natural Resources and Water Committee in the Senate she shepherded a comprehensive package of Water Bills and Bonds.

The bond money, if the bonds pass, will clean contaminated ground water; build the infrastructure to promote the use of recycled water; make money available for regional, integrated watershed management programs;
provide funding for the reuse of stormwater; and, of importance to the LA Region, fund $50 million for the restoration of the Los Angeles River.

“The smartest, most cost effective strategies we can adopt for reducing our dependence on imported water are all based on local solutions, on infiltrating stormwater, conserving water, and reusing water.”

To make sure that local communities have the money to build the ‘green’ parks and ‘green’ streets that are necessary to reduce our dependence on imported water; to have the money for water conservation and for water recycling and reuse, Fran authored SB 790. Sponsored by Tree People, this bill would make any project that captured and reused stormwater eligible for existing or future bond funding.

“Maybe today I would study environmental sciences but when I went to college opportunities for women were limited. More, I liked teaching and it linked to the future and had the possibility of making a difference in the world – in that way it’s like politics.”

In the classroom or in Sacramento, Fran is always a teacher. Her 28 years in a middle school classroom and taking students on outdoor environmental education trips to the Sierras serves her well in her work in Sacramento. In the Assembly she authored an education bill, sponsored by Heal the Bay and signed into law by Governor Gray Davis, requiring all K-12 science textbooks to include age appropriate information on environmental principles. This work is ongoing and is funded by a multi-million dollar grant from the National Geographic Society.

Fran, a native Angelino, credits her family’s love of hiking and camping, the many childhood days she spent on Santa Monica beaches swimming and playing beach volleyball, and her sailing on a 102’ schooner as a Mariner Scout, with teaching her the importance of environmental protection. “I liked sports but spent most of my time in the water. I knew that DDT caused trouble for pelicans. I knew that there were days when we were kept inside for recess due to smog alerts, and I knew that the smog was worse in the warmer months of summer, but mostly I loved being outdoors.”

Her husband, Andy, now retired after 31 years of teaching 7th grade science; her daughter, Jenny, who went to college on a Title IX scholarship and, after a stint as a firefighter, is now studying to be a Physician’s Assistant; her son, David, who is in a supported work position for persons with autism; all share her love of the outdoors and her concern for the environment.

Protecting the environment, improving our educational system, and being a voice for special needs children and families are Fran’s focus as a Senator. She added serving on the Select Committee on Autism to her responsibilities as “this year saw terrible cuts to non-profits. The economy is in the tank and the State budget is tied to the economy.”

Since 1982 Fran has been in public office, first as both a Council Member and Mayor in Agoura Hills, then as an Assembly Member and now as a State Senator. Fran says she “hopes to have seven more years in the State Senate to work on the problems of global warming: the projected sea level rise of 20+ inches by the end of this century, the impact of warmer ocean temperatures, the economic impacts due to decreases in the $46 billion a year ocean-dependent tourist economy. Then we’ll see what’s next, maybe non-profit work. Whatever it will be it will be good, local work.”

What Say You ? Santa Monica: Identity and Water

Gil Borboa, Santa Monica Water Resources Manager, is concerned that Santa Monicans, and even City Hall, turn down tap water in favor of bottled water. “In spite of the elaborate safety and health precautions taken with the City water supply Santa Monicans still buy bottled water. The choice is between bottled water, which is expensive and neither safer nor healthier, and Santa Monica tap water. When people understand what’s at stake, tap water will be the choice.” For anyone who doesn’t like the taste of the water as it comes out of the tap he suggests, “put the tap water into a pitcher and leave it in the refrigerator for an hour. Then drink it and I think you’ll find it’s good.”

Water is a constant theme in the history and identity of Santa Monica. Stella Zadeh, writing in 1975 for the Outlook, recounts the 1917 vote on annexation of Santa Monica to Los Angeles as Santa Monica faced water shortages and Santa Monicans were looking thirstily at Los Angeles and the water flowing out of the Owens Valley aqueduct. “City Commissioners had set the election as far in advance as possible, with the hope that they could improve the City’s water supply before the election and appease the pro – annexationists. They also hoped that nature might come through in time with rain.”

In a very Santa Monica footnote Zaleh adds that, “When an annexation leader claimed he had had no water in his home for 82 days the opposition arranged for the fire department to go to his home and record on camera as the fireman took a 100 foot stream of water from the fire hydrant in front of his house. Films of this were distributed all over town. The annexationists cried foul.” Fortunately for Santa Monica, Election Day 1917 was rainy, water flowed through the pipes and the vote was 4,555 to 3,479 against annexation. Santa Monica was its own city.

Three more major elections focused on water. In 1923 Santa Monicans, worried about an acute water shortage, voted more than $1 million in bonds to overhaul the water system. The city used the bond money to build a five million gallon reservoir at the Arcadia Plant, another five million gallon reservoir at Mount Olivette on Franklin Hill, and to buy water-bearing land on Charnock Road in West Los Angeles. Santa Monicans voted again, in 1948, approving a bond to build two more five million gallon reservoirs. One, a new reservoir at Mount Olivette on Franklin Hill, to replace the previous one and another under the San Vicente median between 24th and 26th streets. The third vote came in 1958, just ten years after the previous bond measure. The City voted 4 to 1 for a $2,700,000 bond to construct a 25 million gallon reservoir at Rivera Country Club under the tennis courts and parking area.

Until 1996 the wells and reservoirs that created the water system worked for Santa Monica. 70% of Santa Monica tap water came from local wells and 30% was purchased from the MWD. Then came 1996, during a routine test, Staff Scientist Myriam Cardenas, Asst. Manager for Water Production and Treatment, noticed that the water from the Charnock wells tested positive for MTBE. MTBE was a gasoline additive that improved air quality but which was a serious health risk when it emerged in the water supply after leaching out of underground gasoline tanks.

The Charnock wells were closed down. The City began long and complicated negotiations and legal actions against the oil companies. The State, in the form of CA EPA and the Regional Water Quality Control Board, intervened on the side of clean water and the lawsuits were settled in the City’s favor. In a reverse of previous water supply numbers, currently 80% of Santa Monica tap water is purchased from the MWD and 20% is from local wells. The City plans to reverse that ratio and return to relying heavily on well water when the Charnock wells are back on line in 2010.

As is well known, California continues to have water shortages, especially in Southern California. California has also seen the degradation of the water supply through pollutants and contaminants. Santa Monica has made a commitment to keeping storm water, with all its attendant pollutants, out of Santa Monica Bay and a commitment to conserving water as we address the State water shortages. “We reuse the cleaned water from the SMURF (Santa Monica Urban Runoff Facility) and we diverted outfalls at Montana, Wilshire, Pico Kenter and Ashland to the Hyperion Treatment Plant.

Because of the shortage of water we are focusing on building green streets to capture and infiltrate urban runoff. Bicknell was first and now Ocean Park Blvd. is being planned,” said Gil Borboa. The City is also investigating possible new reservoir locations for stormwater because of the new demand for recycled water to be used for landscape irrigation and for non-potable plumbing uses. Water, water shortages, water conservation, water quality are interwoven with the history of Santa Monica and with our future. Our identity continues to be defined by our care of our precious water.

City of Santa Monica Water Quality Report
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/PublicWorks/ContentWater.aspx?id=7358

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.