The Colonel’s Vision Statement

By Rachel Heller
Ledger Contributing Writer

LOS FELIZ—Ask a sampling of early-morning hikers how they feel about Griffith Park, and almost all will smile and wax effervescent.
    “I love it up here,” said Rose Burcz, 63, of Hollywood, as she wound her way up the Charlie Turner Trail above Griffith Observatory on a recent Tuesday morning. “It’s quiet and peaceful, and one of my favorite places to be.”
Ask even the most frequent visitors how much they know about the park’s history, however, and most give a much less enthusiastic response.
    Offering 4,218 acres of natural parkland, 53 miles of hiking trails and an unquantifiable sense of city-defying calm, Griffith Park is rarely recognized for its unique founding mission.

An unidentified woman enjoys an afternoon walk in Griffith Park. Photo Credit: JuanCarlos Chan, Los Angeles Dept. of Recreation and Parks

    Col. Griffith Jenkins Griffith, the park’s eccentric namesake, granted a generous swath of his Rancho Los Feliz estate to the city of Los Angeles in 1896 with a vision in mind: to establish an urban haven where city residents of all classes could unwind and relax.
    “It must be made a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people,” Griffith told city officials that year. “I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.”
    Many of the philanthropist’s predictions came true—the city slowly grew around the park, and Los Angeles residents would come to cherish its chaparral-covered ridges as a refuge from urban life. But Col. Griffith might not have envisioned his words becoming a source of reinterpretation and debate in the evolving discussion over how to preserve and manage the park in the 21st century.
    “We don’t have enough park space in the city of Los Angeles,” said Louis Alvarado, who was dubbed the honorary mayor of Griffith Park by former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. “We should keep the park oriented to people. A park is not a park without people.”
    Alvarado and other park advocates want to protect the majority of the land as “urban wilderness.” The best way to preserve the park for future generations, they say, is to champion its open spaces and oppose any further development.
    Griffith Van Griffith, who heads the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust, believes that’s what his great-grandfather would have wanted.
    “[Col. Griffith] foresaw that Los Angeles was going to become a big city, and this would be an urban outlet for people that didn’t have anywhere else to go to see nature,” Van Griffith said. “Now, with so many people living in apartment buildings that don’t even have a yard, it’s fabulous for them to be able to go into the park and have a picnic or do whatever they want to do.”
    Recent proposals for development in Griffith Park—such as those outlined in a city-commissioned new Master Plan the public vocally opposed in 2005 – have spurred the Trust to seek Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument status for the park, he said. The draft Master Plan proposed a hotel, culinary school and sports complex on park grounds.
    “A lot of people want to turn the park into a money-making, Disneyland type of destination,” Griffith said. “You have Universal Studios and Knott’s Berry Farm if people want to go somewhere like that, but most people want to keep the park as an urban wilderness where they can hike or ride their bikes. Making it an Historic Cultural Monument would make it a lot harder for developers to commercially develop the park.”
In fact, commercial amusements were what Col. Griffith sought to bring people away from when he established the park, according to his 1910 self-published book, Parks, Boulevards and Playgrounds.
    In the book, he argues “that there must be an outlet for the population that chokes in the streets and alleys of our cities; that fresh air, communion with nature and amusements other than those afforded by the cheap theater, moving picture show or saloon, are requisites of public health, and worth spending money on.”
    The landowner’s emphasis on outdoor recreation has led to an ongoing debate over the construction of sports fields in the park, said Alvarado, who is also a member of the Griffith Park Master Plan working group. The group, a coalition of neighborhood leaders and park advocates, has worked for three years to complete a revised version of the original draft Plan that they feel would better preserve the park’s open spaces.
    “Some people want soccer fields, but not everyone can enjoy a soccer field,” Alvarado said. “We have to be careful with what we do. It’s a question of losing open space.”
Other points of contention, he said, have included maintaining a fair balance between the varied recreational uses of the park, and the expansion of existing park facilities such as the Autry National Center.
    The bouts of controversy that have defined recent talks on the future of the park could be seen as a fitting reflection of its donor, whose own life was marked by scandal.
    Col. Griffith was born into a poor family in South Wales, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1865 as a teenager. He worked as a journalist in San Francisco covering the mining industry, and eventually parlayed his knowledge of the mines into profitable work as an investor and private consultant. When he moved to Los Angeles, a stint at the forefront of the 1880s land speculation wave further lined his coffers.
    Col. Griffith enhanced his personal wealth through his marriage to Christina Mesmer, a high-society woman from one of the leading families in the city. But as the years went on, his growing paranoia over losing his immense fortune prompted the notorious 1903 shooting of Christina that landed the colonel at San Quentin State Prison for two years.
“He was an eccentric fellow,” said Dr. Michael Eberts, a board member of the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust, mass communications professor at Glendale Community College and noted Griffith Park historian.
Domestic problems aside, however, Col. Griffith was also a forward-thinking benefactor who spoke often in favor of recreational opportunities for Los Angeles residents, Eberts said.
Near Christmas in 1896, the colonel granted a plot of land the equivalent of five square miles to the city for a “public park for purposes of recreation, health and pleasure,” according to the deed, which now hangs on a wall in the park’s visitor center. He specified that Griffith Park remain open to all—for free—“forever.”
    “He was a reformer—Col. Griffith saw the park as a place for folks of modest means,” Eberts said. “There was a feeling at that time that as more and more people moved into the city, they needed open space where they could breathe and simply relax. Col. Griffith felt that eventually, the park would become this oasis in the middle of a great city. That was a visionary comment—he very much believed in the city.”
Attitudes toward development in the park have changed over the past century, Eberts said. The colonel left instructions through his trust fund to build the Greek Theatre (completed in 1930) and the Griffith Observatory (completed in 1935). As for the other structures in the park, Eberts added, it’s anyone’s guess whether he would have approved.
“There were times when it looked like development in the park was going to really destroy it,” Eberts said, such as when the Golden State Freeway sliced through the property in the 1950s, cutting it off from the Los Angeles River.
An “environmental consciousness” of the park began to take hold by the early 1970s, said Eberts, planting the seeds for the preservationist mentality common among park advocates today.
    Asked whether modern uses of the park adhere to Col. Griffith’s original vision, Eberts said it’s “a mixed picture.”
“I think for the most part, Col. Griffith would be gratified that his park is so well-used and has become so woven into the fabric of Los Angeles,” he said. “But at the same time, I think he would look at some of the proposals for development and be a little dismayed.”
Any new structure designed to generate revenue would contradict the colonel’s desire for the park to remain free, he said.
Van Griffith said he feels the park should be kept the way it is.
“I would like to see fewer cars allowed in the park to keep it as more of a walking or biking area,” he said, but added that the city’s booming population makes that difficult. “You can’t restrict people from coming in the park—that was never my great-grandfather’s intention. It’s fortunate that with over 4,000 acres, there’s room for everybody.”
    These days, “everybody” encompasses over three million visitors per year, said Los Angeles Dept. of Recreation and Parks spokesperson Jane Kolb. “It’s an extremely popular destination,” she said.
    The Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council (GGPNC) recently voted to support the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust’s application for Historic Cultural Monument status. Through its backing, the council hopes to maintain the park as the accessible oasis the colonel envisioned amidst the “densely-developed metropolis” of Los Angeles, said Bernadette Soter, chair of the GGPNC’s Parks, River and Open Space Committee.
    “I am hopeful that an Historic Cultural Landmark designation for Griffith Park will help ensure that the colonel’s vision for the park continues and thrives in the 21st century,” Soter said.
    The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission will look into granting Griffith Park the designation on August 21st, said Ken Bernstein, manager of the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources. The Commission would then tour the site to decide its merits, he said. A final decision is expected by October.
    In the meantime, Alvarado’s advice for how to best honor Col. Griffith’s vision for Griffith Park is simple: “Love it and enjoy it and appreciate it.”

Sunset Junction
Street Fair
By Sarah Dryden
Ledger Guest Writer

Sunset Junction, 2007.

SILVER LAKE—When I think of a Street Fair a few notable images come to mind, like children getting their face painted, $4 ice cold lemonade, an array of food items you can eat on a stick and an overzealous local band playing Jimmy Buffet covers made up of guys my dad’s age.
    Now, when I think of the Sunset Junction Street Fair, a few more notable images come to mind, such as kids who prefer tattoos to face painting, $6 ice-cold lemonade, veggies on a stick, and past local acts like Beck playing tracks from his acclaimed album Odelay. Needless to say this Street Fair packs a bit of a bigger punch than your average summer time community gathering.
    The Sunset Junction Street Fair usually attracts a horde of eclectic residents from families to “hipsters.” This year will mark the Fair’s 28th year, most likely making it older than the average age of attendees, many of whom have little to no idea how the Fair even originated.
    The Silver Lake area wasn’t always lined with quirky boutiques and quaint coffee shops; in fact Sunset Boulevard wasn’t lined with much except a few corner liquor marts and dank bars. Back in the 1970s the area’s residents were made up of three very distinct and diverse socioeconomic and ethnic groups— abiding working class Latino families, gang members and an influx of gays—all of which harbored a great distain for the other.
    For years the neighborhood virtually became a tug of war of sharing pavement. As time passed there was suddenly an effort to facilitate positive change and peacemaking between the unlikely friendly sides.
    In 1980 the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance organized the first Sunset Junction Street Fair as a way to bring the opposing sides together to enjoy two days of live music, food and activities. This attempt worked beautifully, and all three soon realized to either agree to disagree or to say “hey, we’re actually not that different after all.”
    Surprisingly, the first Street Fair was predicted to only have a few hundred people in attendance, but it drew in thousands. Today, the Street Fair has become one of the largest attended Street Fairs in Southern California bringing people from all over greater Los Angeles, not just area locals. This year’s event will be held on Sat. Aug. 23rd and Sun. Aug. 24th.
    The admission fee is $15 in advance and $20 at the gate. Children 12 and under and adults 65 and older are free. Proceeds support The Sunset Junction Youth Program, created in the 1990s to help at-risk youth get involved in their community and free from gangs, drugs and violence.
Michael McKinley leads the Sunset Junction Youth Program and is the heart and soul of the Street Fair. McKinley has worked tirelessly to bring something new to every up and coming Street Fair. This year he revealed one word: “elephants.”
    To live in harmony with our neighbors and enjoy great music from performers that includes Broken Social Scene, Cold War Kids and The Black Keys, while enjoying food on a stick, pricey ice-cold lemonade and “elephants?…” I can’t wait!

Sarah Dryden is a 29-year-old freelance writer and production assistant originally from Maryland and currently living in Los Feliz.

Help plan the future of Sunset Junction
By Los Angeles City Council President
Eric Garcetti

    Whether working to bring the Triangle Park to the neighborhood or helping local businesses stay in the area, revitalizing Sunset Junction has been a priority for me since I was elected to the City Council.   
   Now, Sunset Junction will be getting a facelift and the community is invited to help determine how it will look in the future.
    The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is studying the streetscape around Sunset Junction as part of its Compass Blueprint project.  Through the project, SCAG works with government officials and employees, planning and transit experts, community leaders, neighborhood residents, and other stakeholders to take a comprehensive, pro-active approach to shaping our communities’ futures.
    Compass Blueprint’s look at Sunset Junction will focus on the connection between land use and transportation.  The process will help us collectively answer questions such as:  How do we improve the area’s “walkability”?  How do we make it an attractive place to walk, shop, dine, and spend time?  As we do that, how do we make sure that there is adequate access to the area via public transportation, bicycle, or foot?  How do we improve traffic?  How do we develop a parking plan that will balance the needs of residents, businesses, and visitors?
    In June, community, business, and other leaders participated in an initial design charette to discuss initial concepts with the Compass Blueprint team.  Their comments and suggestions will be incorporated into the designs that will be the starting point for discussion at a community workshop.
    The Compass Blueprint team hopes to engage as many community stakeholders as possible during the planning process to ensure that a broad cross section of ideas and concerns are heard.  More input will lead to a better final plan. 
    In addition, I worked with the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services to successfully apply for a grant from Metro (former MTA) that will be used to improve mobility and safety for pedestrians, drivers, cyclists, and others moving around Sunset Junction.  It is my hope that this Compass Blueprint process will guide the decision-making on how these funds are spent.
       Those interested in learning more or making suggestions about the future of the Sunset Junction area of Silver Lake are encouraged to attend the Compass Blueprint community workshop that will be held on Thursday, August 7, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Micheltorena Elementary School (1511 Micheltorena St., just north of Sunset Blvd.). 

City Denies Challenge to GGPNC Election
Board Member
Issuing Challenge Resigns
By Rachel Heller
Ledger Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES—The office of the Los Angeles City Clerk has denied a challenge filed against the June 21st elections of the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council (GGPNC) that could have reversed a political newcomer’s narrow, three-vote win over the longtime council president.
    The July 18th decision ended three weeks of political upset that threatened the stability of the new council board and saw the challenger, a member of the GGPNC, resign.
    Former board member Cheryl Johnson alleged in a challenge June 30th that she and four other stakeholders did not receive mail-in ballots from the City Clerk’s office despite sending in their applications for the ballots days before the deadline. Interim City Clerk Karen Kalfayan in a letter July 18th refused Johnson’s request for a second chance to cast votes, claiming staffers did not receive the applications on time.
    “This decision highlights the fact that there are problems with the election process,” Johnson said. “The city needs to enable people to vote. The procedure they came up with is very cumbersome and obviously has glitches in it.”
    The procedure for mail-in ballots, however, has not changed since the GGPNC administered its own elections prior to the City Clerk’s office taking them over this year.
    Johnson, who was traveling in Turkey at the time of the election, said she mailed five applications for mail-in ballots to the City Clerk’s office on June 9th, five days before the June 14th deadline. The ballots would have been for herself, her husband and daughter and two neighbors.
    But Isaias Cantu, senior project coordinator for the election division of the City Clerk’s office, said the city didn’t mail Johnson the five ballots she applied for because her applications were received late.
    He said the envelope she sent was postmarked June 9th, but the applications didn’t reach the City Clerk’s office until June 17th, three days past the deadline.
“We’re not sure what could have accounted for that delay,” Cantu said. The City Clerk’s decision notes that the applications Johnson sent “were considered late and thereby not processed.” It is not clear at this time if the City Clerk’s office had other mail-in ballot requests postmarked before the deadline—as was Johnson’s—but not received in time.
    If the City Clerk had decided to grant the would-be voters a second chance to cast ballots, their five votes could have upset challenger Mark Mauceri’s unexpected win over GGPNC president Charley Mims in election District E. Mauceri, a “write-in” candidate, filed to run for a seat just three days prior to the election.
    Mauceri agreed with the decision that Johnson should not be given make-up ballots.
“I think the city ruled correctly,” Mauceri said. “She was sent an application [for mail-in ballots] with enough time before the election. She chose to file on June 9th. The onus is on the voter to ensure that they get the vote in on time.”
    Applications for mail-in ballots were mailed out to all stakeholders in the neighborhood council area at least 30 days prior to the election, Cantu said.
Mauceri last month also questioned whether Johnson, who is a deputy attorney general for the California Dept. of Justice, should have used her state government email address to file the challenge with the City Clerk. A state ethics code prohibits government employees from using state facilities, time, equipment, supplies or influence for private purposes.
    The challenge could have been construed as coming from the California Office of the Attorney General, Mauceri said.
    Johnson, however, said the office of the Attorney General had no involvement in her challenge and cleared up the issue with the City Clerk.
The City Clerk’s office did not consider Johnson’s email address as a factor in the validity of her challenge, said Cantu.
    But less than two weeks after filing the challenge, Johnson—a founding member of the council who served both elected and appointed terms— resigned from her seat on the GGPNC board. In a July 12th email to council president Mims, she said she decided to step down to pursue other community activities, including her commitments as president of the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation.
    “The election brought out a lot of energetic people who are willing to serve, so this seemed like a good time” to step down, Johnson said in a telephone interview afterward.
    Other council members were still reeling from the announcement at the GGPNC’s monthly board meeting July 15th. Outreach Committee chair Rosemary DeMonte said Mauceri’s claim that Johnson could have tried to use her state government position to influence the City Clerk’s decision might have contributed to Johnson’s resignation.
    “I’m very sorry that I encouraged Cheryl to put in her challenge because now she is no longer on the board, and I think she was unfairly characterized for her actions,” DeMonte said.
DeMonte will soon begin outreach efforts to drum up candidate interest in two open board seats, she said—Johnson’s, and that of newly elected member Wendy Michels, who recently told Mims she would not be able to serve her term. The council board would then appoint two new members to the open seats.
Johnson said she hopes her challenge will raise awareness of issues the City Clerk should iron out before future elections. She wants the city to eliminate the requirement that stakeholders apply for mail-in ballots, and simply make the ballots available online for easier access. The application step is just another window in which mistakes could be made, she said, and adds a layer of disincentive to voters who might not be in town on election day.
    “Such a low percentage of people vote in these elections anyway,” Johnson said. “You want to broaden the number of people who can vote, not limit it.”
Senior project coordinator Cantu said making mail-in ballots available on a website is something the City Clerk’s office could look into for the next wave of elections.
    “To develop that web function would take time,” he said. “Conceivably in the future, that is something we could consider.”

SLNC: Community Motion Forcing a 2008 Election Fails
By Allison B. Cohen
Ledger Contributing Writer

SILVER LAKE—A community vote to decide whether the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council (SLNC) should hold an election in 2008—rather than 2010 as is currently called for in the council’s bylaws—failed at the group’s regular board meeting, July 2nd. The change in bylaws required a two-thirds vote.
    A total of 163 so-called stakeholders—many of whom were in favor of a 2008 election and wore “Yes for Democracy” tags on their clothing—filled the auditorium at Micheltorena Street School for the vote which was initiated by a petition signed by 182 community members.
    Before the vote, conducted by numerous observers to ensure accuracy—including Jullian Harris-Calvin, with Los Angeles City Councilmember Tom LaBonge’s office (Council District 4) and John Hisserich with California State Assemblyman Paul Krekorian’s office—those on both sides addressed the board.
Some called the board “wimps,” admonishing it of a “power grab,” while others in the audience heckled the speakers. Still others said the move to have an election in 2008 was merely a way to remove some from the board well short of their terms.
    A total of 91 people voted in favor of the motion and 72 voted against. The motion would have required 108 “yes” votes to meet the two-thirds criteria.
The vote sets to rest an issue that has upset the Silver Lake community since late December 2007—when the Los Angeles City Clerk notified the council that it was taking over all Los Angeles neighborhood council elections in 2008.
    The problem was that the SLNC had just had an election in September 2007 and had only seated its new board in December 2007—late due to the resolution of two election challenges.
If the SLNC had agreed to operate on the City Clerk’s new election timetable, meaning holding another election in 2008, some board members would have had greatly truncated terms. Conversely, if the SLNC decided to wait until the City Clerk’s next election year for neighborhood councils—2010—some board members would be serving too long.
According to SLNC co-chair Rusty Millar, the board learned of the dilemma shortly before the Christmas holiday in 2007 and were given only weeks to decide the issue.
    Not able to get the issue on the board’s January 2008 meeting agenda, the council voted on the issue at a specially called meeting in mid January and held a second vote on the matter in March. For both votes, the board opted to wait until 2010 for its next election. They cited a lack time to go through the public process of changing their bylaws to meet the City Clerk’s 2008 election timetable and a desire to not waste funds with another election.
    According to Millar, approximately 25 neighborhood councils of Los Angeles’ current 88, voted similarly to hold off elections until 2010.
“I don’t like this community to be so divided,” said Elizabeth Bougart Sharkov, who has been on the board since 2003. “We had no choice,” she said. “There is no wrong doing here at all.”