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 A decade-long episode between L.A. City College, a golf driving range operator and the community finally comes to an end this week as crews complete their demolition of Majestic Golf Land.
The $6 million driving range opened in 2003, the result of a public-private partnership plan to create revenue for the then-cash-strapped community college system to upgrade its aging infrastructure and facilities. In 1999, the college entered a 10-year lease agreement with Hee Kyun Cho, the owner of similar urban golf driving ranges in the Koreatown area. The college would stand to make $120,000 a year from the venture.
Since then, the driving range had become everything from a neighborhood eyesore, due to its 160 foot-high green netted structure (visible from miles away), to a safety hazard to both the community and the college, due to stray golf balls landing in the college’s child care center, the neighboring Braille Institute and smashing the windshield of a food truck. For years, East Hollywood residents were also familiarized with the metallic “ping” sound of a ball hitting one of the 22 steel columns that hold up the net, which was also brightly illuminated at night.
The college also had a tumultuous relationship with Cho, who stubbornly disregarded recommendations by the college to temporarily shut down the golf range’s operations in order to address the aforementioned safety concerns.
Even before Majestic Golf Land opened, the college soon learned the partnership idea was a huge mistake — In 2002, voters approved a bond measure to fund new construction for the L.A. Community College system (which has since financed the building of LACC’s new library, science building, parking lot/athletic field and other additions), rendering the partnership unnecessary.But by then, the ink on the lease contract had already dried.
 - A golfer drives a ball at Majestic Golf Land in July, 2004
I had been to the golf range once, in 2004, just to take a look around, but didn’t even bother to rent a club or sink a single putt. Sometimes I would joke about showing up at the driving range with half of a golf ball glued to my forehead, and covered with fake blood, complaining to the staff about another stray ball in the neighborhood.
Like many in the community, including LACC administration themselves, I had long anticipated the end of the 10-year lease, and the day had finally come, with the closure of the business towards the end of 2010.
Crews had begun removal work since December (I had hoped for an epic implosion event, but I guess the college wasn’t up for that), though the Majestic building will remain – re-purposed for use as the new home of The LACC Foundation, which had previously operated out of a bungalow on campus.
The 3-plus acre site that formerly housed the net will likely be incorporated into the college’s expansion plans. As recently as five years ago it had been eyed as a potential site for a new LAUSD middle school facility, although the plans for a new school in the area had since been called off.
Goodbye – and good riddance – Majestic Golf Land…we hardly knew ye.
 The Los Angeles City Council will vote on Wednesday, January 12 whether to slash the City’s graffiti abatement budget by up to 50 percent to ease the current budget woes. The proposal comes from a recommendation from the City’s Council’s Budget and Finance Committee.
Yes, we are in a budget crisis, but we’re going to be in an even bigger crisis if we cut graffiti removal efforts, which have actually been effective, despite incessant graffiti citywide.And with the state cutting local redevelopment agencies like the CRA this year, we’re gonna gave to depend more on ourselves to keep our neighborhoods safe, clean and prosperous.
If you live in the City of Los Angeles, visit the City’s website and please call or email your City Councilmember and tell them to oppose the graffiti abatement budget cut at their meeting tomorrow!
 These two never got filled over the weekend. Neither did the other two I called in last week... Last week, I blogged about Operation Pothole – the City of Los Angeles’ highly-touted endeavor to fill thousands of street potholes following our recent rains – and was even excited to call 3-1-1 to report four potholes I’ve experienced on the streets, both on car and on bike:
– Two large potholes on the 700 block of N. Ardmore Avenue (pictured above, taken today).
– One pothole on the 900 block of N. Normandie Avenue.
– One pothole on the 200 block of S. New Hampshire Avenue.
About 15,000 potholes were projected to be filled in over the weekend. Some 16,118 got filled.
NONE of the potholes that I reported got filled.
Wassupwitdat?!?
There were scores of others which I didn’t report, some of them got filled, some didn’t, maybe because no one reported them. But I was 0-for-4 in my report count. An active citizen takes time out of his day to call 3-1-1 to report potholes just like our public officials encourage us to, and not even one gets filled. Funny, because just up the street from a couple of the potholes I reported, were a few newly-filled ones.
Hmph.
Yes, I understand we’re in a budget crisis, and there are still going to be potholes that didn’t make the cut, and I’m a more involved citizen than the average griper, but sheesh – not even one got filled? I’m probably more steamed about the process – 3-1-1 is normally excellent when reporting bulky items (Bureau of Sanitation). But I’m wondering how perhaps the Bureau of Street Services operator failed to note it down, or how it failed to reach the right sources.
Not even one.
Operation Pothole? Pfffth. More like Operation Butthole!
 Today we had our first Mini-Cleanup/Gardening of 2011 at the Cahuenga Branch Library, with seven volunteers pitching in this morning.
I was joined by Monthly Mini-Cleanup veterans Damon and Guia Wood, along with local resident Amanda who first joined us last month, and her friend Amy, from nearby Silver Lake. Later on Eric Moore and J.D. Brown from the EHNC joined in to help me finish my gardening tasks.
 Damon, Amy and Amanda, hard at work removing trash. There wasn’t a huge amount of trash this month, perhaps due to the rains and the holidays, but we did uncover some discarded pots, a metal pipe, a couple small unbroken panes of glass (which went in the recycling bin), a couple syringes (all covered, fortunately) and a pile of crap (literally). No bulky items to call in, but there was a homeless encampment wedged behind the bushes which consisted of a tarp, a backpack and other belongings. Damon asked if we should clean it up, I decided to leave it alone and instead contact Rudy Salinas from People Assisting The Homeless (PATH); hopefully his outreach team can get there when it’s occupied and have him get assistance instead.
Gardeningwise, I spent nearly the entire time removing weeds, which had exploded due to the rains. Much of my time was spent removing ragweed and common mallow, the latter of which had grown a virtual jungle next to the sages in the front. I spent a lot of time hacking at them with a hoe (so much that a small patch of skin in the web of my left thumb had peeled off from the friction). I discovered that pulling them out of the ground was much easier and cleaner.
 After the jungle of weeds had been removed, this is what it the front sage section looked like. After the lengthy weed removal, and after Eric and J.D. had joined in (after the others had already left), we spread the two remaining bags of mulch across the area where the weed jungle once stood to hopefully inhibit future jungle growth. We planted the last remaining potted plant from November – a yucca – in the extreme northwestern corner of the Library property. We also seeded the perimeter of the area with mixed color poppies, since we had so many bags of seeds left.
 The poppies are evolving! Poppymon - gotta grow them all! Speaking of poppies, only a week after I last examined them, the “Y”-shaped Golden Poppy sprouts had now grown extra clover-like stems…this is exciting stuff!
The next Cahuenga Library Mini-Cleanup/Gardening event will be on Saturday, February 5. If you’re interested in helping out, email me!
 I recently got an email from a Ben Fuller-Googins from the Librarians’ Guild, the union representing workers of the Los Angeles Public Library system, which, as you know, has undergone severe service cuts the past year. Ben emailed me asking how he can speak at the January 24 East Hollywood Neighborhood Council meeting regarding Measure L on the March 3 citywide ballot, which will amend the City Charter to increase the allocation of property tax revenue given to the library system. Supporters hope the passage of the measure will restore 7-day-a-week service to the LAPL system by the end of Summer.
I also asked Ben via email why the Librarians’ Guild ignored our correspondence to them since April of last year, especially when when we asked if they can set up a booth at our ‘We Love Cahuenga Library’ Big Sunday event in May. You know, because we also want to save the Library too. At an event on the grounds of a Library. And gave them a forum by which to promote their cause. Their savethelibrary.org website only lists an email address (savethelibrary@hotmail.com), yet no postal address or phone number. They also have a Twitter account and Facebook page, but after asking them via Twitter why they never responded, I only got a, “Oh you never got a response?” response.
FACEPALM.
Fortunately (I hope) Ben explained that he was newly-hired by the Librarians’ Guild to co-run the “Yes on L” campaign, and that the “Save The Library” campaign was one that was run (not very well, I suppose) by some other folks in the Guild. He apologized and explained that “the Guild has learned a lot from the successes and mistakes from that campaign” and is trying to improve with the new one, especially since he and a laid-off LAPL messenger clerk were hired specifically for this campaign.
I’ll give Ben the benefit of the doubt since he obviously wasn’t the one responsible for not responding to a community group willing to support their cause. But a little communications common sense goes a long way. I did tell him to forward my email rant to anyone who was involved in the “Save The Library” campaign, though.
If you need to contact the Librarians’ Guild, you can email them at guild.ben.natasha@gmail.com. At least in my experience, they will actually reply now.
 One of the downsides to the recent record December rains are the number of potholes on the city streets. But even the cash-strapped City of Los Angeles knows it’s a priority. I’ve encountered quite a few in my neighborhood, both on car and on bike, and have called 3-1-1 to report them in, like this one on New Hampshire Avenue, just north of 3rd Street.
The City’s “Operation Pothole” program plans to fill 10-15,000 of these starting on January 8. If you see any in your neighborhood and on your commute, call 3-1-1 to report them or email bss.boss@lacity.org
 Ugh. 2010 was not a great year for me as far as parking tickets. I had gotten three the entire year (a record; especially for someone who doesn’t drive every day), including the notorious ArtWalk tow-away ticket back in August. The third and last ticket of 2010 was gotten on the day before my birthday, right at Hel-Mel, where I usually bike to, though I was in my car since I was showing a visiting friend of mine around town. Because of my stubborn insistence to pay by credit card (but not online or by phone, since they charge you a stupid “convenience fee”), at the last possible minute (you are mailed a letter giving you the absolute due date after the 21-day period before your ticket doubles), at a Los Angeles City Department of Transportation Parking Violations Bureau pay center, I went to their Mid-Wilshire office for the third time in 6 months to pay off this damn $55. Maybe because it was the first working day of 2011, the wait was much longer than my previous visits here. But oh well. I hope that this year, I won’t have to come here again.
I hope you’re happy, City of Los Angeles. Now keep Barnsdall Park City-run. KTHXBAI.
Afterward, to end the story on a happy note, a nice Caramel Macchiato at the nearby Tully’s Coffee made the parking ticket experience go away fast. Ahhh.
 New Year's Brunch 2011, courtesy of David Weidman It’s been exactly a year since this blog began and as with every new year, there’s a feeling of optimism and hope in the air.
So far, 2011 has gone off to a great start. I rang in the New Year at the Down and Out Bar in Downtown Los Angeles with some new friends. Later that day, one of them, Tonya, invited us and some of her other friends to her loft in the industrial district for french toast.
Little did I know it would be a full-on brunch cooked by a friend of hers, David Weidman, who’s a cook “by both hobby and trade.” The “french toast” was actually panettone french toast, stuffed with mascarpone cheese(!) and not only that, but he cooked up some whipped cream scrambed eggs, apple-smoked bacon, fried potatoes and poached peaches, marinated in wine, vanilla bean and cinnamon. What a great way to start off the year!
David is planning to run a bakery business called To Die For… and is planning to sell his wares at a farmer’s market near you. Look out for it!
 Verbinas come into bloom, thanks to the December rains. After several days of rain the past few weeks and an unprecedented amount of December rainfall this month, I decided to check up on the Cahuenga Library Botanical Gardens to see what’s new. Being that this is the growing season for California native plants, it should be pretty exciting.
The first thing I wanted to check was the progress of the California Golden Poppy seeds I sowed in the Library’s front planters on December 4. Lo and behold, what appeared to be Y-shaped grasses were indeed the first sprouts of the poppies!
 These "Y"-shaped grasses are really California Golden Poppy sprouts!
- The westernmost front planter, now with poppy sprouts!
For me it was a fitting reflection of 2010 on its last day — the year I got into California Native Plant gardening, and seeing my passion and interest grow, only to bloom into the new year. Despite some rather remarkable things that have happened in the past year, I consider 2010 a rather mediocre year. I’ve grown, but life in general hasn’t really changed much. I do have a sincere hope and optimism for 2011, and see things really happen. But there’s only one way to find out…
As for the garden at the Library, tomorrow is the first Saturday of the month, but since it’s New Year’s Day, our monthly mini-cleanup/gardening activity at the Library will be postponed for a week to January 8.
I started this blog 364 days ago as an attempt to document my community activities, observations, experiences and other happenings in my life. I don’t think I’ve been very consistent, nor have I realized the full potential of this blog, but I hope to do much better in the new year…Happy 2011 to anyone reading this. And I leave you with a New Year’s song I wrote:
Elson – “The Last Day of the Year”
 Today was the Cahuenga Library Mini-Cleanup, and we had six volunteers show up, including Amanda, a local resident who found out about the cleanup though this blog (Hi, Amanda! :)).
There was a large amount of trash that we had to do, though it was still manageable for six people to take care of. The grabber claws really helped too. There were a large amount of bulky items in the alley side, including a wooden cabinet and sofa cushions. Instead of waiting for Monday, I decided to call 3-1-1 on the spot with my cellphone to see if they were there…indeed they were, so I reported it in (Note to anyone doing cleanup activity). I set the items (I also included the carseat we found last month that was never picked up) by a telephone pole next to the bike racks and told them where it was, so they would likely have it picked up by Monday.
 Coming this Spring: California Golden Poppies (hopefully)! I finally got to plant the California Golden Poppy seeds we bought from Theodore Payne Foundation (a.k.a. T-Payne) last month. Being new at this seeding business, I merely followed the instructions other experienced gardeners gave me: Clear the soil, put some in a paper bag with some seeds, shake and scatter. I also flattened the scattered soil/seed mixture with a hoe and watered it. I put the seeds in three of the four front planters of the Library along Santa Monica Blvd; the fourth was fully occupied by the Verbina and the succulent vine.
There were a couple surprises at the Library today: First, I didn’t recognize most of the staff, save for one familiar face – it was Arthur Pond, who was the Senior Librarian here at Cahuenga from 1996 to 2003 before transferring to head the North Hollywood branch. He was here because most of the Cahuenga staff called in sick, so other branch staff were filling in. He now heads the Frances Howard Goldwyn Hollywood branch. While he was Senior Librarian at Cahuenga, Arthur was a big help and supporter of my early community organizing efforts in the ‘90s, and it was great seeing him after such a long time (my last time seeing him was a few years ago at the Silver Lake Trader Joe’s). I told him what we were doing and he was really delighted to see the garden and people cleaning up. I also introduced him to some of our volunteers.
The second surprise was today’s date – December 4. It sounded familiar to me. After consulting a web site on my phone it validated that thought : Today was the Cahuenga Branch Library’s 94th birthday! It opened on a cold, rainy Monday, December 4, 1916. Excited, I told the other volunteers, and Arthur as well. What a great way to celebrate a community icon by beautifying it for its birthday.
Next month’s first-Saturday falls on January 1, New Year’s Day. We obviously won’t be doing our mini-cleanup (the Library will be closed, after all), but we’ll have it on the 2nd Saturday, which is January 8.
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