Several Palisadians spoke at the Recreation and Parks Board of Commissioners meeting held at Stoner Park gymnasium today.
At the L.A. City Recreation and Board of Commissioners (RAP) meeting today at Stoner Park, the commissioners listened to General Manager Jimmy Kim’s report on Pacific Palisades Recreation Center.
The Commissioners also heard public comments from Palisades Park Advisory Members Robert Weber and Andy Starrels. Also giving testimony was the Palisades tennis concessionaire Mike Tomas and this Circling the News editor.
Last week, Weber and PAB Board Member David Card gained access to George Wolfberg Park at Potrero. They were accompanied by a half dozen RAP employees, two representatives of the Los Angeles Parks Foundation and a CD11 staff member.
Weber reported that “we walked the canyon from top to bottom, it was in great shape.” He said that a couple of sprinkler heads were damaged, as were the auto controls. Basically, there’s no power to run the sprinklers and toilets, which should be an easy fix, since residents were told the reason that Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) had taken over the Palisades Rec Center was to work on infrastructure.
Today at the hearing Kim said that there have now been carveouts from DWP to allow residents to use George Wolfberg Park.
Kim also said that the park had submitted a right of entry to the County, which will allow the Army Corps of Engineers access to remove the destroyed tennis shed, the maintenance building and the large gym.
FEMA has approved the removal of the gym, the tennis shop and the maintenance shop by the Army Corps of Engineers.
He said that DWP was using the outdoor basketball courts as an operational center and the lower tennis courts for storage. He said the small gym was being used as a unified customer service center.
RAP Board President Renata Simril asked Kim “is there any other location besides the park in Pacific Palisades for DWP?”
Kim said, “We’ve been in communication and we’re looking at other areas in the city. That whole area of the park will be under construction.”
Simril, who has visited the Palisades Rec Center asked, “even on our own property is there a better place to locate DWP?”
The Palisades is to receive a new playground with construction to start shortly and Simril wanted the outdoor basketball courts located behind the playground to be available for the public.
The outdoor basketball courts behind the playground have temporary sheds on them and are being used as an operational center by DWP.
Weber addressed RAP during public comments and said, “you likely read in Sunday’s L.A. Times about Lakers coach JJ Reddick’s fantastic commitment to rebuild the large gym. There are also other plans that other local community groups will repair the baseball fields, bocce courts and tennis courts via 100 percent donated funds and labor and can have it all up and running by July.
“The only thing delaying that is LADWP and its armed guards who refuse to let contractors onto Rec Center grounds,” Weber said. “Jimmy Kim has told us that DWP’s right of entry is revokable. The community needs its park back, and the community is ready tomorrow to get to work on fixing it, so I respectfully implore you to amend/revise the ROE so that contractors can get in and start repairs immediately.”
Starrels, president of the Park Advisory Board, said “the park remains off-limits to all users and has been taken over by the DWP for exterior staging and interior office functions.” He said that community members have asked for a timeline when DWP might exit the park.
“Parks are restorative and can heal. Our community needs healing in so many ways. Community groups have rallied to raise money to repair and put back in used tennis courts, the ballfields, Veterans’ Gardens and the bocce courts,” Starrels said. “Those things can be in place by this summer to provide some small aspect of recreation to the community that has suffered so immeasurably.”
He concluded that “nothing can be done because the DWP denies access to the entirety of the park, and because no one will engage with the community to map out a pathway for when the community will get its park back.”
Tomas, who has run the tennis concession at the Palisades Rec center since 2008, said the upper tennis courts are fine to use and that a temporary structure could be brought in to replace the one that burned. He too, wanted DWP to find a new place to relocate. “We get the park back, we get the community back,” Tomas said.
This editor told the Board that when she took a New York Times photographer to the park, they were both stopped by an armed guard, even though they had produced identification.
The guard asked for names, made a call, and then only after receiving an approval, did he let them proceed to the baseball field (which is in excellent shape, by the way). A guard followed them to the field.
This editor pointed out to the Commissioners that in a town of 28,000, this is the only park and recreation center in the Village. “People, who have lost everything, needed a place to go to reconnect. Give them something back.
“DWP needs to leave. There are other places they can go in town,” this editor said and pointed to PAB board members who could give that information to the RAP board. And this editor also pointed out that when DWP leaves, they should replace the healthy trees they cut down and repair the parking lot, which has been destroyed by the heavy machinery.
Councilmember Traci Park told CTN via email that “I’m actively working with the Mayor’s office, LADWP and Rec and Parks to get our Palisades Park back to the community where it belongs.
“These are public spaces, and my goal is to make sure they’re restored and reopened for public use as quickly and safely as possible along with balancing the rebuild of the Palisades,” Park said.
CTN reached out to PAB member Maryam Zar, who said, “I do not believe that the community is pining for a full-fledged Park right now, so much as they are for elements of a recovery.
“As you may or may not know because you have not at all been involved in the work I’ve been doing since January 7, I’ve put together a Palisades Recovery Coalition, which has come up with a very thoughtful plan for the launch of a systemic rebuilding plan and the massive logistics that will have to be in play in order to manage the massive rebuilding ahead. I will be bringing that plan to the Pacific Palisades Community Council on April 10 and I will be asking for community input. In that process, I think the community will have a chance to talk about what’s needed in order for a reasonable recovery to get underway to rebuild an entire community with more than 5000 homes incinerated. The community may emerge with a consensus that, for now, the park will have to be flexible and be willing to strike a balance between activities and services alongside necessary resources brought in by the city.”
An armed guard is at the front of the Recreation Center at Alma Real and Toyopa, not allowing residents into the park area.
Ms Zar
I have lived in the Palisades since 1952. My parents, siblings, children and grandchildren have all PLAYED at the Park. Whether it was indoor roller skating in the old gym! taking tennis, cooking, tap, ballet, skateboarding, lessons, playing little league, basketball, soccer, bocce ball and spending eons playing on the playground. For 73 years the Park has been at the center of our lives. Ms Zar, I along with my family are pining for a full-fledged Park.
This may be minor, but I’m wondering if LA Times delivery is reinstated to homes that are occupied.
Those making “Recovery Plans “ are not living here. They are the same people on “what up apps” indirectly not encouraging “repopulation”. It is incredibly selfish that everything is surrounding “build-back” but for those of us who survived and are now living back at home, we are told we CANNOT use our parks, our ONE market is now filled with beer and frozen food and we are constantly pulled over for supposedly not following the new “driving and speed limit” rules for the “safety” of the dump trucks and contractors (they don’t have to follow the rules). Then if you complain, you’re called “selfish” or told to move. Not all of us have gobs of money to just “move”. The highlands survived but you people have made it almost unlivable. Strike a balance? There’s no balance here, it’s all about you , it’s not about US. Those who have repopulated have been thrown out , thx