Palisades-News-May-6-2015-

Palisades NewsMay 6, 2015 A forum for open discussion of community issuesPage 7Please, may I have some money? I want to throw abig parade, have a concert and show some greatfireworks.”“How much will you need?”“About $145,000. That was the cost last year.”Basically, that’s the challenge faced by the PalisadesAmericanism Parade Association as it once again preparesto organize and fund the Fourth of July parade and theevening’s fireworks concert at Palisades High.We’re always surprised (disconcerted, actually) at howso many people in Pacific Palisades take the Fourth ofJuly festivities for granted and don’t understand the cost,or the amount of time it takes volunteers to throw thebiggest party of the year in our town.Thousands of residents participate in the Will Rogers5K/10K, then gather along the parade route, and eventuallymake their way to the evening concert and fireworksshow. It is truly a glorious day! But this all costs a lot ofmoney, and most residents never contribute to the party.The Palisades News is asking every household to send$5, $25, $100 or more to PAPA (check payable to PAPAto P.O. Box 1776, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 or go onlinepalisadesparade.com.), to supplement the generoussupport provided by the town’s merchants and nonprofitorganizations. Your contribution is tax-deductible.We all savor what the parade and the fireworksParklet DiscussionStory Facts Clarified(Editor’s note: The following letter was sent to the Palisadian-Post,which elected not to run it because the editorfelt the reporter had been fair in writing the story inquestion. The letter was also shared with the News.)For years the Palisadian-Post has been the glue holdingour growing community together with fair andhonest reporting, particularly when it came to community-wideevents. With that memory in mind I wassurprised and disappointed when I read the story“Construction on Parklet to Begin this Summer” becauseof several misquotes and change of facts.The headline implies that the parklet as proposed isa done deal and a time for completion has been set.Neither is true. What I said was that the Department ofTransportation along with the council office has been agreat partner and is working on a plan to make the entireintersection safer and we would have an announcementwhen the details have been worked out. I also said PRIDEwas sensitive to the wishes of the community andwould not proceed if we did not have public support.Parklets are growing in popularity throughout thecountry. San Francisco now has 44 of them in a varietyof locations. Long Beach has 11 and tiny Ukiah hasthree. So if they have been so warmly accepted in otherparts of the world why not here? That is a good question.In search of an answer I did say perhaps the communityis afraid of change. Concerned instead of afraidEDITORIALParade Fundraising Needs YOU!mean to our community’s small-town-in-a-big-citytradition, but this means pitching in.One person has suggested that if each resident (we haveabout 27,000) would give just $5 instead of having agrande latte, this would almost cover the cost of the paradeitself. The motto could be: Donate a “latte” to the parade.The Palisades News, which is the official parade sponsor,is donating the net proceeds from advertisements inthe Fourth of July program to PAPA, an all-volunteer,nonprofit committee.Then there are people like Charli Firestone who, as afive-year-old, and with help from buddy Gavin Alexander,held a lemonade stand in 2012 and sent the $46 earned toPAPA to help pay for the skydivers, the marching bands,insurance and permits, rentals (such as the grandstands),extra police and various City fees. (For the past four years,Charli has supported the parade with a lemonade stand.)The Statue of Liberty, designed by French SculptorFrederic Auguste Bartholdi and paid for by France, wasgifted to the United States at a ceremony in Paris onJuly 4, 1884.But our government was unable to raise the entire$250,000 (about $6.3 million today) for the pedestal,falling about $100,000 short. When Congress failed topass a bill to appropriate this final amount, newspaperpublisher Joseph Pulitzer announced a drive to raiseLETTERS TO THE EDITORwould have been a better choice of words so I apologizeif I offended anyone.The city reviewed many parklet proposals and selectedours over others, so we must be on to something. Yes,this is a busy intersection, at least by local standards.Yes, there are a number of schools in the immediatearea and Garden Cafe is a hangout for teens. Yes, teenscan be a handful as those of us who were involved withCAPPY can attest, but the teen center is gone and theydo need a place to socialize. These are all the more reasonto make the intersection more pedestrian-friendly.Los Angeles was built with the automobile in mind.Intersections are curved to enhance throughput to thepoint where very few of us stop at the sign. SunsetBoulevard is a designated highway, but does it really needto be so wide that pedestrians of all ages have a hard timegetting from one side to the other in the allotted time?Some say the parklet would be better in another location,but I have not been able to find one. Others saywhy have one at all? I hope the Palisades will see whatothers have seen and support our efforts to bring thisgift to the community.Parklets are a work in progress for the city but theyhave already won national awards for their program.Please give us your support so we can make it work here.If we are, after all, like others I suspect the parklet willbe in place long after the 12-month trial has ended andwe will all look back and ask what was the big deal?Don ScottPalisades P.R.I.D.E.Palisades News welcomes all letters, which may be mailed to spascoe@palisadesnews.com. Please include a name, addressand telephone number so we may reach you. Letters do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the Palisades News.$100,000 ($2.3 million). He pledged to print the nameof every contributor, no matter how small the amount,in his paper, the New York World.Pulitzer also used his newspaper to criticize both therich who had failed to finance the pedestal constructionand the middle class, which seemed content to rely uponthe wealthy to provide the funds.Soon, the donations flooded in. “A young girl alone inthe world” donated 60 cents. Another donor gave “fivecents as a poor office boy’s mite toward the PedestalFund.” A group of children sent a dollar as “the moneywe saved to go to the circus with.” Residents of a homefor alcoholics in Brooklyn donated $15; other drinkershelped out through donation boxes in bars and saloons.A kindergarten class in Davenport, Iowa, sent $1.35.Ultimately, more than three-quarters of the donationsamounted to less than a dollar.If Palisades residents have suggestions how moneycan be raised to support the Fourth of July events here,we will print them.Granted, our Fourth isn’t the Statue of Liberty, but aday of celebration of freedom is worthy of the community’ssupport.Remember Thomas Jefferson’s words: “The democracywill cease to exist when you take away from those whoare willing to work and give to those who would not.”Parking Needs toBe Thought OutRick Caruso has announced that he intends to builda two-level underground garage where the current parkinglot is behind the stores on the east side of Swarthmore.That construction will take many months, maybe ayear or more. The lot typically has more than 100 carsparked on weekdays, and since some people will comeearly and leave while others will come later, I expectthat the lot serves 150 or more on a typical weekday.Where will people park when the lot is underconstruction? Other public lots—Sunset below Via dela Paz and on Sunset west of Monument are generallyfull. The Recreation Center lot is the subject of concernregarding its use by people not going to the park.Similarly, both Ralphs and Gelson’s lots are generallypretty full, as are the neighborhood streets near theVillage. If someone doesn’t come up with a plan, theeffect on our local stores will be devastating.Two thoughts on possible solutions: 1.) TemescalGateway Park’s lot is generally empty on weekdays.Maybe Caruso makes a deal with Joe Edmiston andruns a shuttle bus along Sunset. 2.) The lots at thechurches in town are generally fairly empty on weekdays.Maybe make a deal with them to allow public parkingon weekdays.I’d hate to see what’s left of the Village go down thetubes because there’s no place to park nearby. I believethere are other Palisadians who share my view. I urgethe News to examine this issue and inform the public.Stephen Carroll