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Garcetti’s LAND Double-Whammy (Part 2): East Hollywood Visioning Summit

Our Council President does The Robot. Just kidding; he discusses the LAND process.

Just an hour after this morning’s Los Angeles Neighborhood Dreams Initiative (LAND) Summit for Echo Park and Historic Filipinotown, The party moves west to East Hollywood’s Kingsley Elementary School, where about 20 community members came to participate in CD13’s series of community visioning workshops. As with the last meeting, I was tasked with Tweeting the play-by-play at this session, but I wore the active participant hat as well.

What Council District 13 considers “East Hollywood” is a much larger area than what the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council delineates it to be. People from neighborhoods as far west as Santa Monica and Western, to as far south as Ambassador Hill (the area surrounding Beverly Blvd between Vermont and Normandie) to as far east as Rampart Blvd. Despite such a large area, there was the smallest turnout thus far (I blasted the event to the EHNC’s contact list and local schools, although I had gotten the registration link just days before the event, and the Summit’s date, originally scheduled for April 2, was moved to May, then moved back to April 2 — thus the confirmation of the event’s date was also relatively late).

But despite such a relatively small group, we had the most diverse, and probably the only one that more closely matched the area’s demographics:  Roughly half of the participants were Latino, with a good representation of Armenians, Asians and whites (in fact this was the only LAND workshop this far where whites represented a small minority). But even more noteworthy was that despite this meeting actually encompassing a number of defined neighborhoods, our needs and issues were pretty much identical throughout the group; it was almost as if we were one community.

CD13 field deputy Ryan Carpio lists community needs from the East Hollywood crowd.

CD13 field deputy Angela Motta takes down community wishlist items from our breakout group.

We only had two groups, one facilitated by Ryan Carpio, the other by Angela Motta. I was in the latter with fellow E-Ho locals, people from Ambassador Hill, Melrose Hill and Rampart Village. Despite the geographically-scattered neighborhoods represented here in the “East Hollywood” summit, we pretty much came to a consensus on what our community was: diverse, centrally-located, small business-oriented. A multi-modal, historic community with a great variety of restaurants and great institutions like L.A. City College and Barnsdall Art  Park. Even more noteworthy was that our vision wishlist items for our community, aside from specific locations, were basically the same.

Park space was a big issue; the Bureau of Street Lighting maintenance yard on Santa Monica Blvd. was brought up. But since that was a long-term project beyond the scope of the LAND summits, I suggested we take the existing green space at the light yard and double it somehow for community use. I also brought up creative uses for recreational space, such as setting up a temporary basketball court at the Cahuenga Library parking lot during days it is closed. Community gardens and farmers markets were also items the group wanted to have.

Mark Flores from the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council – whose community is some three miles to the east – brought up the need to have an LAPD drop-in center, especially since the Rampart Division left their neighborhood for a new location closer to Downtown. We also needed one here in East Hollywood, close to Santa Monica and Normandie, where the Rampart, Northeast and Hollywood police divisions intersect (there is one planned, at the Mariposa Place Apartments on Santa Monica Blvd, but we keep hearing conflicting reports whether it will happen or not). Emergency preparedness was also an important issue in our group, especially since the neighborhood is home to three large medical centers, and can use local schools, including LACC, as potential shelter sites.

The EHNC's Eric Moore (left) and neighbors from the East Hollywood (and surrounding) area vote on their priority issues.d

East Hollywood being an area of a high transient residential population, with people moving in and out constantly, I recommended the need for “Community Education” – everything from calling 3-1-1 to properly disposing of one’s bulky items, to how to improve and respect one’s own community. That was expanded by others in the group by having linkages between the schools and nearby arts institutions, such as the Pantages Theatre. Public art was highly valued by the group, and many wanted to see more murals.
At the end of the session, Garcetti gave the summary of the visioning workshop. He acknowledged that although we had a smaller group, we were more focused and specific on certain things we wanted to see in out neighborhoods, as opposed to some general needs (cleaner streets, more parking, etc) expressed by some in the previous LAND summits.

Our needs were summed up in the following categories:

– Economic Development (restaurants, storefronts, business incentives)
– Beautification (streetscape projects, art spaces, lighting, street furniture, trees, City attention, UNTAG/Undump (an UNTAG-like program to combat illegal dumping)
– Public Safety (police substation, youth center, emergency preparedness)
– Arts (local culture initiative)
– Park Space (activities, farmers market, community gardens, lighting yard park space expansion, pop-up parks (his term for the temporary parks idea), joint-use)
– Public Engagement/Capacity Building (resource outreach, communication)

On that note, with a smaller attendance than other neighborhoods who have hosted a LAND summit, East Hollywood still has a ways to go, and we need to continue with the capacity building. On the other hand, we’ve come a looooong way from being an “unknown community” with no organizations or local identity; I applaud Garcetti for being the first elected official to recognize the modern East Hollywood as a community in the 13th District. I was very glad the council office knew our neighborhood well enough that we warranted our own visioning summit, as opposed to lumping it in with (central) Hollywood.

I do plan on being on two LAND steering committees, for East Hollywood and Historic Filipinotown. I’ll be following up with any LAND-related activities on this blog. Stay tuned!

Garcetti’s LAND Double-Whammy (Part 1): Echo Park & Historic Filipinotown Summit

About 50 community members attended the Council District 13 Los Angeles Neighborhood Dreams Initiative (LAND) Summit for the Echo Park and Historic Filipinotown neighborhoods on Saturday morning at Echo Park’s Angelus Temple (Previous posts for the Hollywood and Atwater Village summits here). The three-hour community visioning workshop, which took place in a youth center on the church campus, attracted mostly neighborhood activists, especially from groups like the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council and the Echo Park Improvement Association, but a good number of residents and folks from the business sector were in attendance as well.

Aside from having worked in Historic Filipinotown for a number of years, having family and cultural ties to the community (my parents met each other there in the late 1960s), owing Echo Park to my community organizing origins and being a community geek in general, I actually attended the Summit  in a formal capacity; the council office hired me to do social media coverage of the event; I was on hand to Tweet observations and outcomes from the Summit.

CD13 Historic Filipinotown Field Deputy Ryan Carpio facilitates one of the breakout groups for the neighborhood.

Although I attended the meeting nearly halfway through due to taking care of my Cahuenga Library cleanup duties earlier (they were already aware of this), I walked in to a session that was bustling with loud and lively conversation; it was as though the energy of some 50 overlapping ideas body-slammed me as I entered the orange-colored room, which was great. There were four groups formed, generally split to two per community, although many issues overlapped.

This was a unique meeting in that there were two adjacent, yet uniquely distinct communities being covered here: Echo Park, one of the City’s oldest “suburbs,” according to the Summit’s participants, is a paradoxically quiet neighborhood that’s just a stone’s throw from the bustle of Downtown Los Angeles. Largely due to its history and topography (it boasts some of the steepest streets in L.A.), it is home to very active community organizations centered around its residential areas, arts districts, retail corridors (generally, Sunset and Glendale boulevards) and the eponymous park. In contrast, Historic Filipinotown, formally a younger community (it was designated by the City in 2002), centered around arts and culture with a number of longtime residents, some of whom describe their neighborhood as “off the grid” in relation to neighborhood recognition by most people in the City.

I asked a couple of the participants what sorts of ideas they brought up. Echo Park resident Susan Borden, a longtime activist with the EPIA – and was one of my early community organizing mentors when I wanted to duplicate Echo Park’s cleanup efforts in my neighborhood (which was at the time largely undefined, and thus forced me to come up with the “East Hollywood moniker) in the mid 1990s – said she wanted to see things like pedestrian-oriented street improvements, and the beautification of her community’s business corridors designed with the community’s identity in mind.

Joselyn Geaga Rosenthal, a longtime Historic Filipinotown activist and owner of the Remy’s On Temple art gallery suggested altering the purpose of the recycling center on Temple Street to also offer health resources, mainly to benefit the low-income and homeless who frequent the facility.

CD13 Echo Park field deputy Alejandra Marroquin lists down community requests and needs.

A look at one of the Echo Park mindmaps.

I, too, had my own ideas for the neighborhood, namely Historic Filipinotown, but I wasn’t able to arrive in time to participate in the breakout groups. I would like to see an integrated pedestrian-oriented plan for the Temple and Beverly corridors, which would hopefully attract more restaurants in the area. I’m not a fan of most of the current Filipino restaurants in Historic Filipinotown (although there have been a couple of good ones that have only sprung up recently), it seems what is missing from Hi-Fi is a more concentrated commercial/cultural corridor, much like the 6-block-long Thai Town in my East Hollywood stomping grounds. I also would love to see a farmer’s market in HFT, namely under the Beverly Blvd. flyover bridge on the eastern edge of the neighborhood (more on this in a future post…). Fortunately, a number of people already listed “farmer’s market” in their breakout group’s litany of community priorities. As someone who frequents the one in my neighborhood, I believe every community deserves their own farmer’s market.

Garcetti synthesizes and summarizes the results.

Towards the end of the session, Garcetti summarized Historic Filipinotown’s wishlist in the following categories:

– Identity/Marketing (Community gateway landmark, advertising/promotion of community, tours, signage)
– Beautification (Clean-up events, streetscape projects, converting empty lots into farmer’s markets (Yesss!) and community garden sites).
– Economic Development (Bringing businesses to empty storefronts and lots, jobs, attracting businesses and giving incentives to new businesses)
– Arts/Culture (Theatres and culture programs)
– Safety (More police/security patrols, youth activities (which were also linked to arts/culture and job development)
– Capacity Building (Community involvement, community groups)

And Echo Park’s wishlist went like this:

– Beautification (Trash cans/Big Belly, a streetscape plan, tree planting and care, street furniture, Glendale Blvd corridor beautification, conversion of empty lots into community gardens and pocket parks)
– Transportation (Walkability improvements, bike paths, reconfiguration of the 2 Freeway terminus)
– Youth (Park facilities and youth programs)
– Community Capacity (Creating connections)

Like the previous LAND summits, there will be a steering committee — actually one committee each for Echo Park and HFT (I plan to serve on the latter).

It would be interesting to see the energy of the room’s participants translate into results as these steering committees work with the council office on these projects.

But that ain’t all…next comes Part 2 of the LAND Double-Whammy, this time in my home and native land of East Hollywood.

Cahuenga Library Mini Clean-Up, April Edition

We had another mini-clean up at the Cahuenga Branch Library today, but I was mostly not there. Having been assigned to do some onsite Social Media reporting for the Council District 13 office at their LAND Summit in Echo Park, I only was present at the cleanup at the beginning and at the end of the project. Fortunately we had some help!

Last month, I was contacted by Laurie Garcia, Troop Leader for Girl Scout Troop 2125 from Highland Park, who had heard about our cleanup effort (probably via the Big Sunday website) and wanted to have her girls participate. So this morning, they arrived a little earlier and I got them oriented with the tools, materials, plants and cleanup locations.

They had their work cut out for them. There was a LOT of trash, mostly discarded food containers and clothes left by a few of the library’s homeless “residents.” I felt a little embarrassed, especially since they had more work to do than we usually pick up. In fact this was the most amount of trash at the Library since we started the mini-cleanups. Fortunately, there were seven girls, plus Laurie and her husband to volunteer. Amanda Colligan, who has volunteered in our mini-cleanups before joined in as well. I left her in charge as I left to go to Echo Park.

After my meeting, with an hour to spare before the next one in East Hollywood, I returned to the Library and still found the troop busy at work, this time wrapping up. The cleanup was done, and they were busy watering the plants. I got to remove a few weeds. Laurie’s husband removed an entire jungle of weeds in a rear corner (even though I told them they didn’t have to do it) because he couldn’t stand how it looked. I even found out that Amanda, who lives nearby, volunteered to have some of the trash dumped in her household trash bins because there wasn’t enough room in the Library’s bins! Amanda also Tweeted a couple of times regarding today’s cleanup experience.

But having 10 people total working on the Library made a lot of difference. The troop was still going up until 12:45. Laurie said, “We start to finish, we always complete our task.” All the trash was gone, and it was no easy feat. I heard some of the hardest stuff was the discarded clothing, some of which had been embedded in the ground from since the rains of the other week. It was clear to see that they did an excellent job!

Ready to head off to my next meeting, I thanked the girls, all of whom were middle school to high school-aged, and told them that even though some of this community service stuff might be boring or tedious at times, when they get older it will make much more sense to them, especially after they find themselves in their own careers. I hope that made some sense to them; it certainly was my experience.
So once again, a massive thank you to Girl Scout Troop 2125 for their excellent work today beautifying the Cahuenga Library!

The next Cahuenga Library Mini-Cleanup/Gardening activity will be on Saturday, May 7 – I hope I don’t have another meeting that day…this would be the one-year anniversary for some of the plants!

Uncommon Watts and Compton

No foolin’! Today I did a last-minute outreach assignment for The Robert Group, this time to spread the word to various community centers, parks, libraries, churches and child care facilities about an upcoming community meeting on April 9  staged by County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to entertain community input for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Center master plan, which will be at the hospital’s H. Claude Auditorium from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Most of the work was dropping off stacks of fliers, like the one pictured left, to various community centers on a list. Since this was a relatively wide distribution area bounded by Century Blvd on the north, the Harbor Freeway on the west, the Artesia Freeway on the south and Santa Fe Avenue on the east, there was a lot of miles stacked up for this one. The night before I mapped out the locations and plotted them out on a map so I could make an effective route between spots.

I was already familiar with some of the area, having done outreach assignments last year for The Robert Group’s outreach for Metro’s Imperial/Wilmington station project, and a few of those places, like Charles Drew University and the Willowbrook Library were re-visited. There were a few parks that did not have open community centers, so those were either skipped or substitutes were found, as in the case of the Magic Johnson Recreation Area in Compton, which had no recreation center building, but did have a neighboring child care center. I handed a stack to the administrator and she told me there were 44 sets of parents who go to the center, so she asked for extras, which I did have.Even as I left, I saw one parent who picked up her daughter, already leave with one on her hand. Everyone seemed receptive and eager when presented with the fliers; MLK and health care access in general is a huge issue in this community.

A lot of non-community people whom I know seem very apprehensive about this part of town, or just parts of town in general. Last night, while taking the Dodger Stadium Express bus back from yesterday’s Dodgers Opening Day game, I had a brief conversation with this couple who were asking about bars around Dodger Stadium, and quipped about Echo Park being a “sketchy” area. I don’t seem to have a problem going there, and visit friends and businesses there all the time. So perception seems to be a great segregator for certain people. Being somewhat familiar with South Los Angeles and environs, none of that fazed me (though it might be a different story at night); I saw some sights there that looked even better than my own neighborhood.

Here’s a look at the “Uncommon” sights of Watts and Compton:

The Rose Garden at Watts Senior Center, Watts: One of my stops was this senior center, which features a well-manicured rose garden and gazebo. Not the thing most people picture when people think of “Watts.”  But this City of Los Angeles-run facility was bustling inside with senior activities. Located on the corner of Century Blvd and Wilmington Ave, you can even see it from the Metro Blue Line, just north of the 103rd St. station.

Watts Towers Arts Center, Watts: Maybe not so uncommon as it is unappreciated, this is actually the community’s most famous and iconic landmark. Centered around a group of 100-foot tall steel towers handcrafted between 1921 and 1955 by onetime resident Simon Rodia, an Italian immigrant. The surrounding park and greenway had neighborhood kids ride around on their bicycles, and there was a group of college-aged young adults either walking around the grounds or hanging out at the park – all of whom happened to be white. Aside from the whoosh and horn blare of the occasional passing Metro Blue Line train nearby, the loudest sound was made by chirping birds. The complex also features a small art gallery space, as well as a youth arts center named after jazz bassist (and product of the neighborhood) Charles Mingus. How cool is that?

Earvin “Magic” Johnson Recreation Area: Located adjacent to Compton, in unincorporated L.A. County land, is a 94-acre park (formerly Willowbrook Park) named after the Laker great that features lakes, trails and picnic areas. This looked way nicer than any recreation area in my part of town…in fact, my part of town doesn’t even have any recreation areas!

Horseback rider, Athens: Usually, equestrian centers are found in rural or upscale parts of town. But I found not one but two people ride their horses on a trail that runs parallel to the Union Pacific railroad tracks in the Athens area, near Figueroa St and El Segundo Ave. Can you declare, “I’m on a horse!” in your neighborhood?

Townhouses in Compton: Near The Hub City’s downtown area, directly south of the Metro Blue Line station is a set of recently-built townhouses, not something that fits the stereotypically-held image of “Compton.” Which is probably what the civic leaders of the city had in mind, working to turn their city around. It’s been working, since the city has recently recorded a 67% drop in homicides and longtime residents taking to talking the streets again.

In contrast to the above, the only place where I felt slightly uncomfortable was the Imperial Courts Housing Project in Watts, just north of the 105 Freeway. It wasn’t as though I feared for my life or anything, but I automatically felt like I felt removed from the rest of the world by just being there. The World War II-era public housing project’s uniform architecture and color scheme felt very institutional, dare I say prison-like, even though there were no physical walls or fences surrounding the complex. But if even a visitor can feel a separation from society, how would a resident feel?

Prior to the early 1950s, most of what is now known as South Los Angeles was an auto-centric predominantly white suburb indistinguishable from any other suburb at the time. But after the “white flight” postwar demographic phenomena, the newer black population who moved in to the area, after the previous white population abandoned it, came from either a  rural or much denser urban environment.  Incidentally, the newer Latino population also came from either high-density urban or rural areas. So to both population groups, the suburban layout was a foreign environment which posed problems such as challenged access to retail and employment centers. The effect of that suburban separation still lingers  today. I would recommend that the future of most of the South Los Angeles area should be based on transforming the landscape: Converting parts of the suburban layout to highly dense residential, commercial and employment centers, while converting other parts to large swaths of open space for recreation (The Earvin Magic Johnson Recreation Area seems to be a functional example), or even agricultural use (Those South Central Farmers folks certainly have a point).

Going back to MLK, Jr Medical Center, access will still be an issue for the area; although located just walking distance from a joint Blue and Green Line station, those who live far from the rail lines will still have to contend with a relatively long drive or an even longer bus ride. Living very close to a medical center myself (Three of them to be exact), MLK Jr Medical Center should be less of an “island” (as it seems to be now within the immediate area) and fill its surrounding areas with related businesses (private-practice clinics) and commercial zones that benefit both hospital employees and the community.

It Takes A Village: Garcetti’s LAND Visioning Workshop In Atwater Village

I spent my overcast Saturday afternoon with about 30 others in Atwater Village attending L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti’s LAND (Los Angeles Neighborhood Dreams Initiative) visioning workshop at Atwater Crossing. I previously attended the Hollywood LAND workshop back in late January, but I wanted to attend this one for several reasons — I especially wanted to compare and contrast how different communities gauge their visions and needs. I do consider myself an Atwater Village stakeholder — My chiropractor is on Glendale Blvd, I have several friends who live in the neighborhood whom I visit, I have friends who own or used to own businesses in Atwater Village, I occasionally do freelance outreach work for The Robert Group, and was even a victim of crime in the area — I was mugged at gunpoint on Glendale Blvd in August 2001 (I was not physically hurt, thankfully).

According to the L.A. Times’ Mapping L.A. profile of the neighborhood, Atwater Village is a 1.75-square mile, eggplant-shaped area nestled between the Los Angeles River and the Union Pacific/Metrolink railroad tracks, with mostly the city of Glendale on the other side (Glassell Park is across the tracks in the southern end). Boasting over 15,000 residents, its ethnic mix is roughly 50 percent Latino, 22 percent white and 20 percent Asian (mostly Filipino).

As typical with most community-involvement events, the nearly 30 people who attended Saturday’s workshop didn’t exactly match those percentages. Not including the councilman and his staff, the attendees were nearly all white, with a few Latinos and another Asian (also Filipino) besides myself.

Most of the people who did attend were people who were already in tune to the neighborhood goings-on. There were several board members of the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council present (Would that warrant a Brown Act violation? Not sure…), Several representatives of the local business community and chamber of commerce, a teacher from Atwater Elementary, and other actively-concerned residents and stakeholders.

CD13 field deputy Angela Motta facilitates our group.

The format was the same as the Hollywood workshop – Garcetti spoke about the LAND process, we were split up into groups (there were three here) and each group was asked by a facilitator to provide neighborhood assets, needs and priorities. Our group was facilitated by CD13 field deputy Angela Motta, who incidentally also handles Atwater Village for the council office (as well as Hollywood).

Participants mark with stickers priority needs in the community.

For me the “needs” section was the most interesting part. A neighborhood that describes itself as “quaint” and with a “small town feel” in general seeks to merely enhance or protect what it already has; there are few, if any “radical change” needs requested here. Most of the needs dealt with pedestrian safety, beautification, river/park recreation enhancements and small business improvements. From my outsider point of view, Atwater Village doesn’t have the same issues East Hollywood has: lack of park space, graffiti/gang presence, blight, lack of residential parking and rising residential and commercial rents. I brought up a need for the community to have a pedestrian bridge directly serve the Glendale Metrolink station so that Atwater Villagers can have increased access to existing regional rail transit, which several others in my group agreed. I also brought up the need for the northern end of Glendale Blvd to be as pedestrian-friendly as the southern end, citing my mugging incident in the slightly less-commercial northern end as an example.

Others in the group had very interesting ideas. Ava Bromberg, project director of Atwater Crossing, brought up a lot of transformative planning-related concepts: Eliminating or shrinking the Glendale Blvd median so that sidewalks can be widened and bike lanes could be added to the corridor; adding murals to the sloping concrete abutments under the railroad tracks at Los Feliz, Glendale and Fletcher; capping the railroad underpass along Fletcher and replacing it with an overpass, allowing Casitas Avenue to continue.  Other ideas dealth with increasing pedestrian safety on the Hyperion Bridge (especially for Marshall High School students), increasing access to the river, to Glendale and to Griffith Park, and converting various small parcels into park space. Beautifying the Glendale Freeway easement was also brought up.

Priorities from Group #3

Visiting Group 3, Garcetti takes notes.

Garcetti summarized the workshop’s collective needs into six general areas: Connections and connectivity, attracting neighborhood businesses, transportation/walkability, L.A. River-related issues, beautification needs and various community-group and planning requests.

At the beginning, one participant questioned the councilman’s purpose of organizing this event, saying, “Why should we trust you…the City is broke!” Garcetti replied, in short, that funding is out there, we just have to look through different sources and think and act creatively. He talked about the recent Clean and Connected Communities grant for small beautification projects around the district and how funds were able to be acquired for that. On that note, some of these projects are totally doable, such as the pedestrian bridge to the Glendale Metrolink station across the tracks, which can likely be built mostly with federal transit administration funds rather than City or county money.

During the event, I got to chat with board members of the AVNC such as Cindy Marie Jenkins, Bruce Fleenor (who recognized me as one of the EHNC members who came to their meeting to speak in support of the Cyclist’s Bill of Rights) and Robert Smith. I even gave them all “I Love East Hollywood” bumper stickers as a goodwill offering, which they were already aware were inspired by their own neighborhood council’s stickers.

After the LAND workshop, I took a long walk around Atwater Village, enjoying a sandwich from Vince’s Market, walking by attractive native plant gardens on front yards, and even returning to the fateful spot on Glendale Blvd where I was surrounded by eight dudes at gun- and knife- point on a Summer’s night a decade ago and gave them everything I had. Even despite that, I still had some envy for this neighborhood — after all they still have a Foster’s Freeze (I have fond childhood memories of the one at the end of my block, which was taken away by development nearly 30 years ago)!  I’ve always thought of Atwater Village as a neighborhood that’s relatively well-to-do with regard to basic quality of life issues. But the biggest thing I learned from today is that no matter how good a neighborhood is or looks, there’s no end to community needs.

Cerritos For Pulido

On Wednesday evening I headed down to the city of Cerritos to see my friend Mark Pulido get sworn in as member of their city council. He was elected in the March 8 election, where he was one of seven candidates vying for three seats in the at-large council. Not only did he win one of the seats, but he garnered 5,198 votes (from an estimated 10,097 voters, a city election turnout of 32.9 percent), making him not only the top vote-getter in this election, but of all time in Cerritos election history.

Pulido (left) takes the oath alongside re-elected councilmembers Joseph Cho and Bruce Barrows.

Pulido also made history as the first Cerritos City Councilmember of Filipino descent. Over half of the city’s population of 55,000 is of Asian ancestry, and Filipinos alone comprise 11% (2000 census figure) of the total population and have established a prominent business presence in the city. The five-member city council has three members of Asian descent, the remaining two are white. According to Pat Simbol, a Cerritos native and mutual friend of Mark and I, eight Filipinos (“From our parents’ generation,” he commented) ran unsuccessfully for the council in the past. “It took someone from our generation to finally make it,” Simbol added. Pulido himself made two previous unsuccessful runs for the council (though both were special elections where only one seat was up for grabs) before reigning victorious last week. Though I was unable to vote for my friend, I did show my support by donating to his campaign. I also tried to facilitate the endorsement of a prominent Los Angeles elected official for Pulido, which didn’t get to materialize, but judging from the final tally, it wasn’t even needed after all.

A packed house of dignitaries, friends and family filled the council chambers.

A full house of family, friends, supporters, neighboring city dignitaries and County supervisor Don Knabe packed the council chambers to witness, Pulido finally took the oath of office alongside re-elected councilmembers Joseph Cho and Bruce Barrows. The three were sworn-in by city clerk Vida Barone. After a couple quick photo-ops, he walked up to the concave table and took the seat vacated by termed-out councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem Laura Lee.

Lee was also commended for her eight years of city service in the form of speeches, tributes and the presentation of certificates (which took all of an hour and a half). The special council meeting also featured the handover of the mayor’s position from Cho to Carol Chen, who gets to preside over the council and represent the city as its mayor for one year. In one of his last acts as mayor, Cho, who was born in Japan to Korean laborer parents, dedicated a moment of silence to the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami. He also mentioned, in his farewell speech as mayor, that he will be running in this Sunday’s Honda Los Angeles Marathon in honor of the Japanese disaster victims.

As the newest member of the Cerritos City Council, Pulido gave a gracious and gratitude-filled 18-minute speech which thanked literally everyone by name who was instrumental in getting him to the seat which he was now sitting on.

Ladies and gentlemen -- your new Cerritos City Council (from left: Pulido, Mayor Pro Tem Jim Edwards, Mayor Carol Chen, Joseph Cho, Bruce Barrows)

After a three-hour council meeting dedicated to ceremony and formalities, there was a reception across the street at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, where elected officials and invited guests were treated to a tasty buffet of sandwiches, pastries, desserts, salads and hors d’oeuvres. Cerritos city politics never tasted so delicious. Or maybe I was just that hungry. Nevertheless, it was a time to take pictures, chat with friends and associates and network. It was also a time to simply enjoy and celebrate the functions of democracy.

Councilman at last.

And now, the real work begins, dealing with issues like redevelopment, infrastructure, quality of life and the ubiquitous budget crisis. Pulido’s first official city council meeting will be on March 24. Best wishes and best of luck, Mark. I’m so proud of you, man.

March EHNC Outreach Meeting

Tonight we had our East Hollywood Neighborhood Council Outreach Committee meeting at THAIs, Inc’s offices. We took recommended $1000 sponsorship of the Youth Art Pavilion at the upcoming Songkran Thai New Year festival on Hollywood Blvd, which will be on Sunday, April 3. We also looked over the estimates from Lacey Art Service for EHNC window stickers to promote the neighborhood council to local businesses.

This was my first meeting  of a bikeable distance since my bike was stolen last month. Needing my exercise, I decided to walk the 1.2 miles from home to the THAIS,Inc office, which didn’t take as long as I thought it would take – just under 20 minutes. Must say, it does feel good to walk the 2+ mile roundtrip to the meeting and back. I guess walking is a suitable substitute for biking in the interim.

A Brush With History

I’d have to say that my musical exploits has lead me to interesting places. Playing music and singing at funerals might be depressing or morbid to some but they can be inspiring events, especially when you get to know about the deceased’s impact on not only their family and friends, but the world. And sometimes you get a little extra out of the experience, such as the time I had the unbelievable opportunity to sing with Stevie Wonder at the funeral of former Motown Records president Skip Miller in September 2009.

On Saturday morning I was asked to play bass for a memorial service (the deceased’s body was not present) at First Baptist Church near the Mid-Wilshire area. I knew nothing about it other than the location and the songs I was going to play. Upon arriving, I was slightly annoyed at the sight of a stretch Hummer limousine, which had difficulty entering the church’s parking lot, which I was to park in as well.

Eddie Hilley, my musical director at St. Agatha’s, who was asked to lead the music for this service smiled and told me, “I heard the person who died was an NFL star…”

It turned out to be an athlete whose name rang a bell but one I wasn’t very familiar with — Ollie Matson II, who actually died nearly a month ago – was memorialized by family, friends and colleagues today. He played for several NFL teams, such as the (then) Chicago Cardinals, the Detriot Lions, the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles (His entre NFL career predated my birth). He was also an inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and an Olympic silver and bronze medalist for Track and Field in Helsinki 1952.

But perhaps Maton’s bigest achievement was for a game he didn’t play.

Matson played college football at the University of San Francisco and in 1951 his team garnered a 9-0-0 record, which earned the USF Dons an invitation to play in the Orange Bowl…with one exception: That Matson and teammate Burl Toler – both the only African Americans on the squad – not play in the game (remember, this was 1951).

Apparently this upset and insulted the entire team (which eventually produced 10 NFL players) , its coaches and school administration (USF is a Catholic university, run by the socially-conscious Jesuit order), that they declined the invitation and refulsed to play in the Orange Bowl because of such a blatantly racist request.

Their moral stance came at a price though – the next year, the USF football program lost its funding and hasn’t been active since.

Other than his post-collegiate achievements, Matson got with some good company – Bill Cosby was invited as a eulogist to the memorial and was supposed to produce a videotaped speech, but technical issues prevented that. But he did write a eulogy which was read by a friend.

While many people remember iconic events such as Rosa Parks’ transit-riding defiance, or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s historic marches and speeches, lesser-known actions such as the 1951 USF football team were no less important in the American civil rights saga, and American history as a whole.

A True Soldier’s Final Salute

On Saturday, I attended the funeral of Faustino “Peping” Baclig, a beloved figure in our local Filipino community best known for spearheading efforts to lobby for recognition and equity for Filipino World War II veterans. He died on February 27 at age 89.

Many people in the Filipino community in Southern California have some connection to him, whether they served with him, marched with him, protested with him, organized with him, or were simply inspired by him. I’m honored to have been a co-worker of his.

I took this picture of Baclig in 2002 at the Historic Filipinotown dedication at L.A. City Hall.

I worked with Baclig circa mid-1990s at a nonprofit group called Filipino American Service Group, Inc. (FASGI), which largely served Filipino seniors. I worked as the organization’s communications coordinator, and Baclig was one of a handful of Filipino World War II veterans who worked at the agency, doing various tasks. But by far the biggest task was lobbying and organizing to call attention to the issue of Filipino World War II veterans – namely the fight to earn the veterans’ benefits promised to them during wartime that they never got. Baclig was a true soldier both in war (having survived the legendary Bataan Death March in 1942) and long after the war as well.

Baclig, or “Mang Peping” as many called him, was admired and respected by those from the younger generations as well. A few of my filmmaker friends have even cast him in movies and music videos. A quote of his is – quite literally – written in stone at the Filipino Veteran’s Memorial in Lake Street Park in Historic Filipinotown. And he was easily visible in media soundbites concerning Filipino veterans. Simply put – he was The Face of the Filipino World War II Veteran.

Around 100 people were in attendance at Whittier’s Rose Hills Memorial Park (in the Autumn Terrace section) to bid Baclig their final salute, under an uncharacteristically sunny and warm Winter day.

A flag-draped coffin, a bugle playing “Taps” and the presentation of the folded flag to the deceased’s widowed survivor are usual traditions at the interment of one who served in the armed forces, usual enough to take for granted. But this was different. From the very moment I saw the flag-draped casket being brought to the burial site, my eyes uncontrollably welled up in tears. It was completely symbolic of what he fought for in the past few decades. And perhaps it was also a symbolic message for other Filipino Americans like myself (or even anyone else from an immigrant background) to not take “the usual” for granted, because, even though we are still struggling and wanting, we still have much more than what we used to have. Nothing we have ever done was futile.

 

Homing doves are released by family members.

Around 100 bid their last goodbyes to Baclig.

Not trying to be morbid here, but I think this might be the place where I'd like to be buried when my time comes (if there's still some space left...). I mean, look at that view! (Click to enlarge)

Dude, Where’s My Bike?

It began just like any other visit to the Council District 13 field office on Hollywood and Western. I was there to meet with District Director Marta Segura to talk about ways I can help do  outreach (especially with regard to social media) for their upcoming Los Angeles Neighborhood Dreams (LAND) workshop for East Hollywood, scheduled for Saturday, April 2. After my meeting at the Council office, I headed right to the curbside bike rack where I locked my bike and noticed something peculiar.

My bike was gone.

Wait, what?

STOLEN: My 54cm Motobecane road bike. Farewell, old friend.

Yes, my old 80s-model blue-grey Motobecane road bike, which I bought from a Recycler Classified ad for $60 in 1993 (along with an incompatible-for-my car  rack, which I sold for $20, rendering the bike at a next cost of $40), is gone.

Some mf'er cut the cable lock, just like that!

The only trace of my bike, and the clearest evidence of the method of theft was my Kryptonite cable lock, which was discarded in the parking lane of Hollywood Boulevard like a broken toy, chopped clean through the cable like a piece of rope. Recently, I put in nearly $100 into it, had it refurbished at the Bicycle Kitchen last summer with new tires and outfitted it with handlebar foam. I was about to bring it back to the Kitchen to get its brakes re-done, since I had nearly been hit by a car yesterday since I could not stop the bike in time. Iwent back up and told the CD13 staff what had happened; they seemed to share my sentiment about getting the bike stolen, especially, literally right at their front door.  Segura even gave me a lift home even though I wouldn’t have minded the walk. She was vigilant on the trip there and looked at every bike that seemed to fit the description. None did.

I wasn’t that insistent about getting my bike back; It wasn’t that expensive and I nearly even donated it to the Bicycle Kitchen. But being violated with the experience of bike theft, especially in a very public, pedestrian environment, much more one that had turned around from its dark, high-crime past over 20 years ago was what bummed me out. Yes, I was bummed, but not devastated. I did learn that I should no longer trust cable locks, and go for a heavy-duty U-lock instead. Funny, because I assumed the dilapidated nature of my bike (it had ugly rusty spokes) was theft-deterrent enough. I guess I was wrong. My biggest conundrum isn’t necessarily replacing my bike, but deciding what to replace it with. Should I go for a nice, moderately-priced road bike, or stick with a cheap one, because it may inevitably get stolen? I really don’t know at this point. Mitch O’Farrell from the CD13 office told me I’m welcome to bring a bike into the office next time I visit, instead of leaving it outside. But as of now, my local preferred means of transport and my primary means of exercise is currently gone.