Hello everybody,
A comprehensive report just released that evaluates parks and open
space in the Los Angeles region lumps the South Bay in with the
poorest communities in LA County. The report, "The Green
Visions Plan for the 21st Century Southern California" even
discusses on page 114 how the demographics (high incomes) of the South
Bay are inconsistent with their lack of park
space.
And yes folks, the figures include the beaches. In fact,
this report allocates almost 300 acres of beaches between Torrance and El
Segundo.
The University of
Southern California, the State
Coastal Conservancy and other government agencies have collaborated on this
audit of parklands and open space in the Los
Angeles region, which includes some areas in
Orange and
Ventura counties. It's over 100 pages of both technical
and practical information that segregates this 5.5 million acre area into 10
sub-regions, ours being the South
Bay.
Only East LA and
South LA fare worse than the
South Bay in acres of
park per thousand residents. See table 69 on page 111 of the
report. Here is a link to the report:
http://www.greenvisionsplan.net/html/welcome.html
This is not a revelation to most of you I
know, in fact, I feel like 'I'm preaching to the choir.' But many in
our community either are unaware how bad it has gotten here, don't care,
or even in the face of detailed analysis that benchmarks the region against
itself and the rest of the country will argue all is well in Oz.
Personally, I have found that most people are just unaware of how bad our
situation has become.
There is the bright spot in the report that
what we do have is well-maintained. Over 60% of our parks were
rated good to excellent for
maintenance.
Our board has talked about doing an audit of
the South Bay park and open space resources but felt we didn't have the
resources to do an adequate job. So we much appreciate the willingness
of all the organizations that contributed to funding this comprehensive
report. As we gain momentum and build the political will within both the
region and state for converting the AES site to parkland, independent studies
like this go a long way in making the case for our need for such a
facility, and what a great opportunity this is to build a large regional park
that we so desperately need.
Rest assured we will be passing around this
comprehensive report that puts our situation in perspective. Regardless of where in the
South
Bay you live, encourage your
elected leaders at all levels of government to work on ways to
increase our parks and open space. With the passage of
Proposition 84 last November, there are resources available to help. We
are not in this alone.
An excerpt from page 9 of the report
reads:
"Parks and open spaces afford people a range of
personal, and socio-cultural, and economic benefits. For example, by
offering opportunities for both passive and active recreation, well-designed
parks and open spaces promote a more active lifestyle that is key to a
person's health. Public open spaces can also be seen as "mixing valves"
that provide spaces for people to interact, thereby decreasing insularity and
enhancing a sense of community. Additionally, even if difficult to
quantify, perhaps one of the important benefits of parks are the
"intangibles", such as the sense of well being they impart to residents, even
to those who rarely use parks."
Lastly, I'd like to thank everyone who renewed
their memberships recently! We have a great new database thanks to
your contributions and a hardworking mom - Wendy, who does this for a living
and somehow finds time to help us too. And to those who just joined, we
can't thank you enough for not only seeing the value in what we are
trying to accomplish, but helping financially too.
All the best for 2007 from everyone at
the SBPC!
Bill
Brand
President
South Bay Parkland
Conservancy
PO Box 7000-408
Redondo Beach, CA
90277
310-809-4405
Here is last months
Update.....
*****************************************************************************************************************************
Greetings Everyone,
Years ago, when we first
started envisioning the AES power plant site as a park and restored
wetland right on our coast, kind of like a Central Park of the
South Bay, among the many issues we faced, the biggest question was,
"Where would we get the money?"
TWO very large state bonds were
just approved last month, with significant funds in both to help
tremendously with our vision. Proposition 84
provides $5.4 billion for Clean Water, Parks and Coastal
Protection, or projects like restoring a wetland and building a park on
the densest area of our coast. Proposition 1C allocates
another $400 million for urban area parks, which we also
qualify for.
What we need now is the political
will from your elected leaders, and a strong leader who is willing to
spend some of their political capital on a project like this. Read below
about a political leader, Governor Schwarzenegger, who saw an important
need and made the changes happen.
In some ways this is the
hardest step. It's not a matter of the public supporting this
anymore, after all, they just voted to tax themselves for billions of dollars,
and the residents of Redondo Beach rejected two different mixed-use
plans for this site in the last couple of years, what matters now is
building the political will.
That's what the South Bay Parkland
Conservancy is focusing on in 2007, building the political will by building
awareness and membership, and educating our elected leaders about the process,
and bringing that process to their table. We're also educating YOU, on
the progress we've made, the steps that remain, and the obstacles we must
overcome. Without your support, we will 'Die on the vine' as one of our
Directors so aptly put.
So, on that note, when closing out
your finances for the year, please consider a generous,
tax-deductible donation and membership to our
organization. We still have a long way to go, and our organization
is a group of local South Bay residents who will use your money wisely to
keep this effort going. For an inspiring look at who represents you
in this cause, take a quick look at the bios of our Directors:
You'll be impressed, and see a
group of hardworking, educated and dedicated residents like you that
are donating their time based on your support. So please help us with
funding, and pass this email on to family friends to get on our
list.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah,
Happy Kwanza, or just Happy Holidays,
from everyone at the South
Bay Parkland Conservancy!
Bill
Brand
President
South Bay Parkland
Conservancy
PO Box
7000-408
Redondo Beach, CA
90277
310-809-4405
GEORGE SKELTON / CAPITOL JOURNAL
Gov.'s action on levees a model of leadership
George
Skelton
Capitol Journal
December 14, 2006
Sacramento - The
media often get accused of not reporting the good news. OK, here's some good
news:
* Government has been working.
* Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger has been leading.
* My house may escape a Katrina
catastrophe.
All summer and into the fall, big rock-laden barges have
been plowing up and down the Sacramento River, pushed by tugboats. Towering
cranes on other barges have been lifting these rocks - ranging in size from 6
inches to 2 feet - into eroded hollows in earthen levees that are the only
flood protection for 300,000 Sacramentans.
California's state capital
has had the worst flood protection of any major city in America, we're told.
The levees are rated at less than 100-year protection - meaning there's a
better than 1% chance each year of being flooded. New Orleans had 250-year
protection before Katrina hit.
But because of Schwarzenegger, the
leakiest levees have been plugged in time for the new flood
season.
Give the guy credit. If it weren't for him, the ambitious
$175-million project wouldn't have been attempted. Not by the state, of
course. Not by the feds, certainly, although it was largely their duty. Nor by
overwhelmed local governments.
Schwarzenegger didn't just sit around,
waiting and whining for the federal government to act, as it should have. He
pounced on the problem. Even Democrats admit that the Republican governor
exerted the kind of leadership that the public covets, but too often is
denied.
"I think it's part of his character," says Democratic state
Sen. Michael Machado of Linden in San Joaquin County, a farmer who is the
Senate's flood control expert. "He sees a need and works to get it done. There
was a lot of levee damage last winter, and he wasn't going to wait for the
federal government to act.
"A lot of people, including myself, applaud
him for taking the initiative."
Of course, flood control doesn't stir
partisan juices like healthcare, environmental protection or workers' comp. It
doesn't smack political nerves like public pension excesses or auto-pilot
school funding, both of which Schwarzenegger tried to reform and got hammered.
Who can be against flood control?
Well, nobody. Except President Bush
wouldn't spring very much for it.
And before Schwarzenegger came along,
some governors penny-pinched and pared back levee maintenance to ostensibly
balance the budget.
"We had significant cuts," recalls state water
director Lester Snow, who has worked for governors of both parties. "There was
a lack of interest in tackling these issues in a couple of previous
administrations."
Schwarzenegger has significantly increased the levee
fix-up budget. And that's separate from the $4.1 billion in flood control
bonds overwhelmingly approved by voters in November. That money will finance a
10-year program of levee repairs and upgrades.
Schwarzenegger wasn't
going to wait for the bonds, either.
Even before the 2005 Katrina
devastation, the state of California was jarred with its own wake-up. An
appellate court ruled that the state was liable for the 1986 collapse of a
century-old levee on the Yuba River near Marysville.
The settlement for
fewer than 3,000 people cost state taxpayers $464 million.
And months
before that payout and Hurricane Katrina, Schwarzenegger saw firsthand how
vulnerable the Delta is.
The Delta is a mixing bowl of several rivers
that supplies drinking water for 24 million people and irrigation for 3
million acres. It includes 60 islands that lie below sea level, kept dry by
600 miles of old levees.
A major earthquake could cause several levee
breaks, sucking ocean water into the mixing bowl and forcing the shut-off of
water to Southern California. Repairs could take years.
One levee did
collapse in mid-2004, flooding an island and its farms. And this wasn't even
flood season. The new governor went down to take a look.
"He talked to
the people who lost their resources," Snow says. "On site, he authorized me to
immediately begin closing the breach. He saw firsthand the fragileness of the
Delta."
Leap ahead to a ferocious winter in 2005-06. Rivers were
roaring out of the Sierra, and the governor was getting antsy. The fact that
he was running for reelection especially spurred him.
The state
identified 24 particularly weak spots along the Sacramento River, from the
Delta to Chico, roughly 100 miles north of Sacramento. Later, nine more bad
sites were listed.
Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency,
allowing him to dip into emergency funds for about $100 million and suspend
environmental and contracting rules.
The governor urged Bush to also
declare a federal emergency and chip in with substantial funds. By law, the
feds usually pay for 75% of major flood repairs.
The president refused
the emergency declaration - there wasn't an emergency yet, he noted - but did
agree to streamline the issuance of federal levee-repair permits. That
expedited the work.
"It was unheard of cooperation from the federal
agencies," says Les Harder, state deputy water director who's the flood
expert. "Unprecedented, unbelievable."
But the feds only would put up
$30 million, which basically was obtained by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif.). Schwarzenegger, meantime, secured $500 million from the
Legislature and wound up lending the Army Corps of Engineers money so it could
help the state shore up the levees. All 33 holes now have been
plugged.
An additional 71 soft spots also have been found and are being
hardened. That work, along with levee testing and local grants, will use up
most of the $500 million.
"The governor told us to do it," Harder says.
"We could have been waiting for the federal government, and it wouldn't have
been done for years. Chances are, one or more of those sites would have failed
this flood season."
Schwarzenegger came to Sacramento promising to be
an "action, action, action, action" governor. In flood control, he has been.
And that's good news for everyone.