What Say You: It’s A Small Town After All

This column is an invitation to a Santa Monica City Council Candidate Forum. It’s a recognition that Santa Monica is ‘on the map.’ It’s the saga of a dress. Mostly, it’s a story of gratitude.

Santa Monica is a City of world famous beaches; known for environmental stewardship; home to renowned chefs and star restaurants and leaders in the locavore movement. From the iconic Palisades Park to the creation of the new Civic Center Parks, from the fun of the Pier to the fun of GLOW - Santa Monica has the chops.

First, let me tell you a quintessential small town story, a story about a dress for a wedding that is really a story about a small town. It was Saturday, I went to the tailor’s to pick up my dress for the wedding of the son of dear friends. The store was unexpectedly closed. The wedding was the next day. What to do?

I looked for a sign in the window, “in case of emergency call….” Nada. I went into adjacent stores, told my story, got lots of sympathy, but no one knew how to contact the owner. I called the President of the Merchants Association. She, alas, had no contact info.

Then I saw the police car, parked at the curb. Remembering that Santa Monica now has beat officers so that local residents and merchants can know the officers in their area, I thought it was worth a try to ask him. But what about taking police time for a personal problem?

“Officer, may I ask a question? It’s a personal question and not a police question and I won’t take your time if you’re busy.” He politely asked what he could do to help. I told my story. His answer, “If I told my wife this story she’d tell me to break into the store and get the dress for you.” We both laughed. He called City Hall, but no luck.

Ready to give up, I called a friend, “Do you have a dress I could borrow?” And I even called a Santa Monica City Council member, who it seemed to me, knew everyone in Santa Monica, “Do you know how I could reach the tailor?”

The end of the dress story is that I got a call from the tailor, “Ms. Cloke, I got your number from the Santa Monica Police Dept.” We agreed to meet at the shop so I could get the dress in time for the wedding.

I was grateful to the tailor. But I was overflowing with gratitude for the sympathy and help I got from the merchants, the Council Member and the Police Department. I realized Santa Monica may have a worldwide reputation but is still a small town where people help each other with the small stuff.

The question for me is, how to make sure that we keep the small town ethic. I think one part of the answer is leadership. We are blessed with many wonderful leaders in our neighborhood, civic, educational and philanthropic organizations. We have City Council Members who give out their phone numbers, answer calls on Saturdays, and are here to help people.

In a little over six weeks, Santa Monicans will be voting to fill the five open seats on the City Council. There will be many ‘meet and greets’, candidates will be knocking on doors, residents will be getting fliers in the mail. And, the Santa Monica Mirror invites you to meet all the City Council Candidates and to hear their answers to the questions of the day.

The event is called “Hometown Forum.” It will be held in the MLK Auditorium at the Main Library, on Monday, October 11. Candidates will be there at 6:30 p.m. to meet-and-greet and the Q&A will begin at 7 p.m.

The forum questions for candidates will come from community organizations and individuals, not from the editorial board of the Mirror. You can send in your questions for the candidates to election@smmirror.com And, of course, the Mirror will have information about the candidates and the election from now until Election Day and after.

I’m hoping we elect people who are committed to environmental stewardship, to protecting our beaches, to building parks, to the quality of our schools, to our civic organizations, to our educational organizations, to our neighborhoods, and to our local businesses, to making City government work for the people of the city, and to never losing the small town ethic.

What Say You?

Hometown Hero: Anna Cummins

Anna Cummins, marine educator, environmentalist, recalls, “The creek next to my house was my favorite place to explore. One day, following the creek far north of my house, I saw horse manure from a stable draining into the creek. It was the first time I connected what happens on the land and what happens in the ocean. I was nine and it was my first ‘aha’ moment.”

Cummins recounts a later, serendipitous, ‘aha’ moment. “I was living in Europe and I got lost in Paris and went to a bookstore I knew how to find. In the bookstore I got invited to a film. I went only because I had nothing better to do. The film was Design Outlaws. It was about the environment and I walked away from the film thinking, this movie makes such sense, why aren’t we choosing to live this way?

“For the first time I thought about being an environmentalist as a career. I went to grad school at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. At the World Oceans Conference 2002 Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Foundation spoke about the massive quantity of plastic waste in the North Pacific Gyre and the harm it causes.

“I learned about petroleum based plastics and how they leach chemical additives, which are endocrine disrupters, such as phthalates, and BPA. These chemicals are linked to reproductive disorders and other health issues. Marine organisms ingest the photodegraded plastic particles resulting in the disruption, and in some cases breaking, of the food chain. The food chain we depend upon for life.”

Cummin’s next ‘aha’ moment came in a Montana Avenue coffee shop. She saw people with their plastic water bottles and all the plastics being used in the coffee shop when biodegradable materials could easily serve the same purpose. Cummins said she thought, “If these people knew the effects of their behavior, they would want to make different choices.

“Many people have the perception that water in plastic bottles is safer to drink than tap water. The beautiful image of a mountain stream on the bottle leads us to believe the water comes from a pristine source. The idea that we’re taking good care of ourselves by carrying around plastic water bottles has become the standard, but it’s really been a very effective and false marketing campaign that we’ve bought into.

“We’re becoming walking experiments – without giving our consent. The chemicals in plastics affect us in ways that we neither know nor understand. What we need to do is to adopt a precautionary principle. The manufacturers should have to prove that the chemicals are safe as opposed to what happens now, which is to take products containing those chemicals off the market only after it is proved that they have harmful health effects.

“I became overwhelmed with the feeling that everything I do is harmful to the environment and I was feeling hopeless,” Cummins said. She started working at the Algalita Foundation, and in 2008, she crewed for Captain Moore, crossing the Pacific Gyre on the Oceanic Research Vessel Alguita. For a month she collected surface samples over a 4000- mile ocean area.

“We studied lantern fish, small deep-sea fish that live about 1000 feet down and surface at night to feed,” she said. “They mistake photodegraded plastic particles for food and that’s relevant to us because the lantern fish are prey for tuna and other fish that we eat. We are now just beginning to understand the health threats we bring to ourselves with our own plastic waste.”

In the middle of the Pacific Gyre, Marcus Eriksen, Cummin’s crew mate, made her a blue ring out of discarded plastic fishing lines and proposed. Anna asks, “How could I say no to that?" They decided, when they returned to land, to launch an awareness raising project. Ericksen made a raft out of discarded plastic bottles, the Junk Raft, and sailed it from Long Beach to Hawaii and Cummins was responsible for all land support, for making speeches, and for publicity.

They also took a Junk Ride on bicycles down the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to Tijuana to talk about plastic and how people could make a difference by being conscious of the effects of their choices. Cummins and Eriksen spoke at elementary and high schools, universities and city councils all along the way.

“In 2009 Marcus and I started the 5 Gyres Institute with the goal of exploring the subtropical gyres to study plastic in the world’s oceans and to bring the issue to an international audience because it is a global problem.”

Anna Cummins tells of being inspired by the work of other environmentalists and how that offsets her feelings of hopelessness. “I believe that knowing the problem means having the responsibility of choice. The knowledge is not a burden but a privilege. Why would I not make a choice to protect the natural world?”

What Say You: Fable Farm

Barnard, VT. Fable Farm community dinners are every Thursday throughout the growing months. Members of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) get together at the Fable Farm’s gardens, next door to the iconic white church and just down the road from the General Store, est. 1836. All of Barnard is invited to share an evening meal of tasty pizzas, baked in an outdoor oven they built themselves. Local musicians play on guitars, drums and violins; children climb the trees; dogs romp in the garden; and every one eats together at the outdoor picnic tables. CSA members go home with their weekly share of the crop. www.csacenter.org

In the early 1900’s Barnard was a popular tourist destination. Sinclair Lewis and Dorothy Thompson lived at Twin Farms in Barnard and New Yorkers took the train from New York to Woodstock, VT and then came up the hill to Barnard for the clean air, the drinking water quality lake, the green of the woods, and the delicious produce from the local farms.

One hundred years later, a new generation of entrepreneurs has come to Barnard. They’ve come without money, but with a concept of building community and creating economic stability, through a new paradigm of sharing the production and the enjoyment of the food the community eats.

Christopher and Jon Piana, call themselves ‘salvage’ farmers because they bought a heater for their greenhouse, so they could extend the growing season by starting plants early and in a protected environment, and an engine for their roto-tiller, but everything else they use for farming is reused, something someone has given to them, something made from materials that would otherwise be discarded.

They farm on property they don’t own, with the generous permission of people who have land they live on part time and of farmers who live here year round. The member’s weekly share changes month by month. Right now there is an abundance of corn, garlic, zucchini, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, fennel, cabbage, beets, kale, onions, leeks, and herbs. Everyone is invited to help themselves to the sunflowers and cosmos and herbs growing in the gardens.

The first year twenty families joined, providing enough capital for, literally, ‘seed money.’ In a few years time, in a City with a population of under 1000 people, CSA has grown to 65 families, each pay between $400 to $550 annually and some families pay, not in cash, but in work on the farms.

The Pianas hope to build much more than an organic food co-op. They are consciously working to recreate a new cultural archetype. “Industrial agriculture is both hugely polluting and hugely alienating”, says Christopher. “Our agricultural adventure is healing for all of us. Eating healthy food is essential to how we feel every day. More than that, food is powerful because it cuts through the current right/left paradigm. Every one needs food.”

The Pianas and the members of the Barnard Community Supported Agriculture are not unique to Barnard. They are part of a nation wide, but locally organized, movement to grow community and healthy relationships through sharing the production of organic food. Fable Farms is now 3 years old. CSA groups have been on the East Coast for about twenty years. Currently, California and New York lead the nation in CSA and related groups. www.localharvest.org

Willing Workers on Organic Farms, an organization, started in New Zealand, makes it possible for people to travel all over the world working on organic farms. Like the Fable Farms community, these are people who are seeking to create a new paradigm – one that ‘relocalizes’ agricultural production and connects producers and consumers, one that doesn’t rely on petro-chemicals, one that is transitioning from oil as the primary energy source to an economy based on solar and other forms of sustainable energy. www.wwoof.org

Fable Farm has workers this summer from Maine and from Rome and from Paris. The farm workers get tents to live in, they share in the food they produce, eggs from the farm’s hens, goat’s milk and grains, and they are invited into the community of Barnard. “Whether they’re new to farming or old hands, it doesn’t make a difference, every willing hand helps and it’s invigorating to us and to the community to have people come here from all over,” says Christopher Piana. “But the real truth is that we wouldn’t be successful if it weren’t for the spirit of the community in Barnard.”

Santa Monicans share in the creation of this new paradigm. We support relocalization when we go to meet our neighbors and buy our produce at any of our four, weekly farmer’s markets. We support the transition from an oil-based economy when we buy produce that is not grown with petro-chemicals, the organic produce. Santa Monica connects producers and consumers at community gardens and through our garden sharing programs. In doing so we become a part of a worldwide movement that is entirely local. http://www01.smgov.net/farmers_market www.smgov.net/comm_progs/gardens

Here’s to the fruits of summer and to the bounty of all our gardens.

Hometown Hero: Erika Aklufi

Erika Aklufi

Erika Aklufi, Santa Monica police officer, attorney and triathlete, represents the American immigrant family dream come true. 

Her paternal grandfather was a Sephardic Jew from Yemen who came to Brooklyn NY in the early part of the 20^th Century and soon met and married the Czech Catholic who was to be Erika’s paternal grandmother.

Certainly each dreamed of a better life for themselves, their children and grandchildren as they braved the change from the known of their home countries to the unknown country that would become their new home. 

 Living at a time when women could neither be police officers nor competitive athletes, could they even have imagined the life their granddaughter would build?

Erika says of herself, “I love going up against the edge. I like to throw myself into new things and into the work and effort to succeed. That’s what makes me happy.

“I love, when I’m in uniform and people say hello to me and I know I’ll be there, ready for whatever is necessary to make things better for each person who needs me. I believe the Santa Monica Police Department is the premier department in Southern California. It is a mature, well-trained and well-educated group of people, small enough that we are all members of the same team and I love being part of the team.

“For my job and for sports it’s all about consistency – keeping up with police training every day; running every day; swimming every day. I run on the beach daily, I swim at the pool at Santa Monica College. I want to know the people I serve as a police officer.”

2:54:30 was Erika’s time for the 2010 LA Marathon.  On October 16, 2010 she will compete with world-class swimmers in a 12.6-mile open water endurance swim from the Manhattan Beach Pier to the Santa Monica Pier.  The “Pier to Pier” challenge will raise money for the environmental organization, Heal the Bay, and for Exceeding Expectations Foundation, a non-profit organization that works with at-risk children.

“This is my first time to swim 12.6 miles in open water. We’ll run into the ocean off the beach. Each swimmer will be accompanied by a kayaker. I’ll keep my course by sighting off buoys and keeping parallel to the beach, just past the breakers.

“Competitive swimming is like being in a deprivation tank. You can’t hear much and you can’t see much and you just get into a free form of consciousness. I focus on the race with a part of my brain for the entire time and think about how I’m feeling and when to speed and when to push and when to pull in. Part of me is isolated and part of me likes to be part of this mass of humanity that’s all moving in the same direction.”

Erika started swimming competitively at age 4 and still holds the 5-6 25 yard freestyle record for the Canyon Crest Swim Team in Riverside CA, where she grew up. Her father is an attorney and her mother the principal at the local elementary school.

Swimming helped get Erika to Yale University where she was on the Varsity Swim Team. They were the Ivy League Champions in the 94-95 season. She majored in psychology at Yale and thought it was an amazing place – all except the weather.

After graduation from Yale she decided to come back to CA to go to Law School at UC Davis King Hall. “Law school was about soaking up atmosphere and deciding whether I really wanted to be a lawyer. I was trying to figure out how to be an adult and be responsible.”

Ericka lived in a loft in the fashion district in downtown LA when she practiced law. “I was part of the hip crowd, but not a hipster.” As a lawyer she worked on municipal, labor and employment, environmental and toxic tort cases. She also served as a pro bono mediator for a Los Angeles County Superior Court Panel.

“I liked the practice of law. I liked the challenge. I liked being able to help people. But it wasn’t right for me and for my goals. I wanted to spend more time helping people directly and without money being so much part of the issue.  So I decided to go through the training and education to become a police officer. 

At the end of my day, at the end of my career, at the end of my life, I want to be able to say I didn’t waste a single day of my Life. I really feel that being a police office is a way to do that. Every call I go on I want to make sure that everyone is in a better place because I’ve been there.”

Erika, in speaking of the history of her family said, “We celebrate everything – Christmas and Hanukah, Easter and Passover, the 4^th of July and Thanksgiving. I’m so lucky to have my family and to have parents who, even when they didn’t understand what I wanted to do, supported me because they saw it made me happy.

Talking about how she sets her goals, Erika said, “I believe I shouldn’t take more than is fair from the world and that I should do my work with an open heart and in a way to make myself happy and to make a difference in the world.”

Pier to Pier race event information, including information about shorter races and training clinics and other event details, is available at: http://www.distanceswimchallenge.com

What Say You: Bicycle City

Whew! The LUCE is finally approved. After six years of well-attended community meetings, single-minded focus by dedicated planning staff, and beaucoup bucks spent on consultants, the City Council approved Santa Monica’s Land Use and Circulation Elements (LUCE). LUCE’s two respective parts are key elements of the General Plan for Santa Monica and are the documents that will guide decisions on development and traffic management in Santa Monica for the next two decades.

Santa Monicans repeatedly spoke out at community meetings stating that traffic congestion was an overwhelming concern. The LUCE identifies bicycling as an efficient and sustainable alternative to the car and describes programs and actions that will make it easy and safe for everyone, of all ages and fitness levels, to get around town on a bike. Santa Monica is being designed to become a noted Bicycle City.

At this point you may be asking, “How can we control traffic that is mostly generated outside Santa Monica by riding bicycles?” This pessimism rears its ugly head in the LUCE, “Even if the City were to halt all new development over the next 20 years, the local automobile circulation system would continue to deteriorate at a steady pace due to continued growth outside Santa Monica’s borders.” We can’t control development or traffic outside the City, but we can make Santa Monica an even greater place to live, work and visit by thinking about the future differently.

The policies in the LUCE invite us to imagine a time when people who drive to Santa Monica, whether to go to the beach, or Palisades Park, or to events like GLOW, are directed to parking and then are greeted with safe, attractive opportunities to get around the city on bicycles. Several hundred thousand people come to Santa Monica on hot summer weekends and even if only some of them take the bicycle alternative, there will be fewer cars driving through our neighborhoods to the beach, fewer cars at the pier, and fewer cars on Ocean Avenue. Fewer cars, more bicycles, and the same number of people. We know, when offered, it works. More than 1,000 bicycles were parked by the bicycle valets at the Green Apple Festival on the beach. (See photo by Michelle Glickert)

Now imagine people who come here for their jobs being able to park in the employee parking areas and having bicycles available to them, or being able to store their own bicycles conveniently. They could bike to lunch, or to a meeting, or as their daily exercise. The City is currently looking at Davis, CA and Copenhagen, Denmark, which are two successful bicycle cities where 14 percent and 35 percent, respectively, of work trips are by bicycle.

Or think of the Expo line, scheduled to open in 2015. Expo riders, whether coming to Santa Monica for work or pleasure would find that they could pick up a bicycle at the Expo Station. From there it will be an easy ride, down (the redesigned for walking and bicycling) Colorado Boulevard to the new Civic Center Parks, to shopping, and restaurants, or to the beach and the pier. The idea is to have a public bicycle rental program with easily available and affordable bicycles and a network of drop-off and pick-up locations throughout the community.

In order to make bicycling safer and more efficient, there will be a newly designated and interconnected grid of ‘bicycle pathways’ including streets dedicated to bicycles, streets where bicycles have priority, and streets where bicycles and cars are made equal by speed limits and other new regulations.

Benefits include lessening traffic congestion, having a healthier life style, having more fun, and a valuable reduction in the current greenhouse gas emissions levels produced by car traffic in Santa Monica. Again, the LUCE, “Achieving a 30 percent reduction in overall Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) would reduce Santa Monica’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least eight percent — far more than everything else the City can do, combined.”

Naming the bicycle “the most efficient form of urban transportation,” the LUCE states, “bicycling is ideal in Santa Monica’s mild climate and gentle terrain. Many trips in Santa Monica can be made more quickly on bicycle than in transit or by car. Riding a bicycle around town protects the environment, improves public health, eases congestion, and reduces air pollution and noise pollution. Bicycles are a tried and tested, simple, cheap, and zero- emission technology.”

To read the specific policies, goals and action programs that will guide the way to reducing traffic congestion through making Santa Monica successful at replacing auto trips with Expo, buses, walking, and bicycling go to: http://www.shapethefuture2025.net and read Chapter 4, “Circulation.” Lewis Mumford, one of America’s most noted urban planners is famous for having said, “Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.” I hope he would agree that bicycling is good for both.

What Say You?

Hometown Hero: Ted Winterer

“Ted Winterer is a visionary for the work he did to bring the 4^th of July parade to Santa Monica’s Main Street. The parade is a slice of the American Pie,” said Deputy Police Chief Phil Sanchez.

Ted, remembering the first parade, said, “We worked against a backdrop of not knowing if anyone would show up and worrying about what could go wrong. The first year was the most difficult because everything was new to us and we did everything we could to do everything right but we were worried that we’d forget something essential. Then the whole thing worked and it was a great rush.”

2010 will be the first time Ted, his wife, the designer Beck Taylor, their children, Eleanor and Steele, and their dogs will join the marchers. For the previous three years Ted was a parade producer and, on the day of the parade itself, a wrangler. Producing the parade came naturally to Ted as he had been working in production in the movie business for directors like David Ward (“The Sting”) and Mike Figgis (“Leaving Las Vegas”).

Ted’s first venture into local politics was after he became a father. He and his family lived in the historic Sunshine Court bungalows on 3^rd Street. He decided he had to do something about the speeding cars on the street. Ted got in touch with OPCO (Ocean Park Community Organization) to ask for help and, suddenly, he was the Chair of the Traffic Committee of OPCO.

Ted became known in the neighborhood and was asked to join the newly formed OPA (Ocean Park Association). By 2006 he was OPA’s president and worked on citywide issues of traffic and congestion, bicycle safety and environmental protection of the beach.

When Beck was asked if she would apply for an open position on the Recreation and Parks Commission, she suggested that her husband Ted apply. Ted was interested, motivated by being a father, having always been interested in sports – having played soccer and softball at school and now playing soccer with the 30 and over league at Paul Revere.

“Being on the Recreation and Parks Commission was congruent with all my interests. I applied and was appointed. I was getting great experience in City government and all the public issues of the City.”

Ken Genser then encouraged Ted to seek an appointment to the Planning Commission. He took Ken’s advice and was appointed to the Planning Commission. Ted characterizes the Planning Commission as “a lot of work and a steep learning curve. We have thought provoking but collegial disagreements and I’ve had fun and feel I’ve contributed to the City.

“On the Commission I’ve been an advocate, in the LUCE and in individual projects, of making bicycling safer, easier and more fun.” It is a continuation of the work Ted did at OPA starting the Sunday bike valet at the Main Street Farmer’s Market. He supports bringing the B-Line bike system to Santa Monica and he has made sure that the LUCE supports bicycle ridership.

Strongly against putting the recently introduced increases to height limits in the LUCE, Ted said, “It was an 11^th hour vote, by the Planning Commission, to increase heights. The fact that it had not been vetted in the public process was very troubling to me. As a City we have been through years of public workshops and meetings where we had committed to support the widespread community sentiment to preserve the scale and character of Santa Monica.”

Ted grew up in that most urban environment, New York City. “While I was raised in an urban environment, I was also raised in the outdoors, camping and backpacking with my family. Santa Monica has all the virtues of an urban lifestyle and still preserves an intimate connection to nature. I make a point of seeing the ocean every day. Living in Santa Monica means that I can get to Mt. Baldy to ski in less than two hours, if I leave at 6:30 in the morning, and still be home it time to have dinner with my family at a great restaurant.”

If you’re looking for Ted Winterer, you can find him, early almost every morning at the beach in Ocean Park. He loves the “historic vibe, the quality of the light, and the feel of the ocean in the breeze.” Ted thinks Ocean Park is a ‘hip’ neighborhood but says about himself, “It’s not that I’m hip, but I do like living in a hip community.”

Ted is a dedicated husband and father, dedicated community servant and advocate for Santa Monica; the 4^th of July parade is an event that epitomizes his values. Talking about the parade he said, “It’s a unifying event. It brings people together to celebrate their shared patriotism in a homespun, volunteer way. You see your friends and neighbors cheering and waving you cheer and wave back and you know you really are part of a small town. I cherish that feeling.”

To do your own waving and cheering, come to the parade! For more information go to http://www.opa-sm.org/parade

What Say You: Palisades Park June 13 Tour

Great parks are physical expressions of our history and our aspirations. They tell the story of the people, past and present, who have claimed the parkland as their own, intertwined with the story told by nature, geology, wind and water.

Palisades Park, given to the City by Sra. Arcadia Bandini, Colonel Baker and Senator Jones, is a great park. Made great by the ocean and the palisades, its place as a connector between the City and sea, by its history and by all the forces, natural and human, that have created this public space.

I had the chance to meet with the Santa Monica Conservancy docents who will be at the Park on June 13, 2010 to welcome people to a tour of the park and to talk about the history, the landscape, and the events that make Palisades Park what it is today. www.smconservancy.org

Walking the length of Palisades Park from north to south was, as always, wonderful. But walking with the Conservancy docents and hearing their stories, I was also in the company of the Tongva/Gabrieleno Indians who lived for centuries on the coast we now call home. They truly lived lightly on the land and so there are few physical traces of the as many as 5000 Tongva who lived, in small villages, on the Southern California coast.

The plants have changed as well as the people, from the natives of the time of the Tongva to imports such as the Dragon Trees from the Canary Islands. Pink Melaleucas, twisted trees with ground-hugging branches, pink blossoms and whitish flaking bark and Australian Tea Trees with dark furrowed bark and small white flowers are signature trees in the Park and favorite climbing spots for small children. Eucalyptus trees, from Australia, were brought in by Abbot Kinney of Venice Canal fame. He hoped Eucalyptus would prove to be useful for construction. He grew them at an experimental nursery built on land also donated by Arcadia Bandini.

Iconic colonnades of Mexican Fan and Canary Island Palms echo the shape and form of the linear park, their image recognizable far beyond Santa Monica. Italian Stone Pines repeat linear patterns, each new planting design overlaying the past with the aesthetic of its own time. Now, again, working to save the palisades from erosion, we have returned to the native plants that express our commitment as a city to the principles of environmental sustainability.

The park is continuously reinvented. The Senior Center was originally the location of the North Beach Station of the Pacific Electric Railway. The new building, constructed in 1955 by architect Weldon J. Fulton, was given to the City by philanthropist Marcellus L. Joslyn, in memory of his wife.

The funicular that once spanned from the park to the beach is long gone, but the desire to re-create a way to get from the park to the beach is getting a new look by the City.

Along the recently created natural paths are a timeline of monuments that celebrate our history. The totem pole anchoring the northern edge of the park honors the Native Americans of our Country. Walking south through the park we come to the stone marker dedicated to George Washington by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Our walk takes us past the sculpture of Arcadia Bandini, surrounded by a formal rose garden; the Montana ridge, a ceramic bench designed to look like the rocks; the Craftsman Idaho gates with the emblematic Batchelder tiles; and, of course, the Pergola. At the south end of the park we relearn the ironies of history when we come to the monument dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Chichen. Unfortunately, their achievements have been lost to memory.

Everyone seems to agree the weather is perfect for playing in the park. Not too hot, not too cold, not too bright. The park is filled with people. Bicyclists in cycling outfits, joggers and walkers, grandparents and grandchildren, hand-holding couples, people and their dogs, photographers, people practicing yoga, people exercising with their trainers, chess players, and picnickers mix comfortably together. It was a pleasure to see the way each person made the park his/her own. It was also a pleasure to know that this has been a special place for generations, and, if we do our job as good stewards, it will continue to be a special place for the generations to come.

Knowledgeable and welcoming Conservancy docents will be in Palisades Park on Sunday, June 13 to share their stories with you. I, for one, raise my glass in a toast of gratitude to Arcadia Bandini. Her gifts to our City have not been well recognized. She was the daughter of one of the original Ranchero Families of Southern California, known as a good businesswoman, a gracious hostess and a generous philanthropist. I say, muchisimos gracias Arcadia Bandini. What say you?