POLITICS-The recent brouhaha in Mar Vista is reflective of the entire LA experience, and much of why our local voter turnout is so low: a high-priced school, helping a few students but hurting traffic in an already over-congested region, with plans to pave over one of the few cherished and existing soccer/open space fields in the Westside, in an era of declining enrollment.
So who do YOU hate more, the LADOT which classifies north-south Walgrove Avenue (clearly a residential street) in West Mar Vista as a secondary arterial street, LA City Planning and the City Council which allowed Playa Vista to become a reality and markedly worsen traffic on Walgrove Avenue, or the LAUSD which is trying to build a $30 million campus and bring in 1000 more car trips each day on Walgrove Avenue? (Photo: LAUSD Superintendant Ramon Cortines)
This isn't the only example of either the City of Los Angeles or LAUSD spending poorly and undermining the needs and desires of its taxpaying residents ... and usually to benefit a few well-heeled and well-connected special interests...be they contractors, developers or any other group that has paid full-time lobbyists to torpedo the rights of the citizenry while said citizenry is busy at work making a living.
Of course, the issues surrounding the LAUSD are much more complicated: many of those West Mar Vista neighbors complaining about the proposed Mandarin Immersion elementary/middle school plan aren't just complaining about the $30 million price tag (a worthy complaint) or the razing over of the soccer field to make room for the school (another worthy complaint) ...
... but they're adding to the traffic--and being forced to add to the traffic--because they're chaperoning their kids all over creation because they don't want their kids going to Mark Twain Middle School.
It's easy to blame those parents, just as it's easy to blame the parents from throughout the City and County of Los Angeles for wanting a Mandarin Immersion program with room to grow from K-12, and who believe that the current location at nearby Broadway Elementary School in Venice doesn't have enough room.
But blaming parents, or blaming kids, who bust their tails and lose so much of their lives and energies with those daily commutes is hardly fair. It might seem fair to blame them if you're an LAUSD insider who believes that mandated attendance at the local school is the way to go ... because we're the government, dammit, and you will do what you're told:
1) But what if the LAUSD is the problem--because there's so much political correctness and armies of lawyers and lobbyists that protect the LAUSD and its UTLA minions from the will of the taxpaying citizenry, the rise of charter schools has occurred because of the unmet needs of that taxpaying citizenry to have accountable and quality schools within walking distance.
And when it comes to one's own children, LA parents will drive their kids all over the region, and lie/cheat/beg to get their kids into Santa Monica schools, or pay megabucks and drive themselves into poverty and pay college-size tuitions just for the K-12 experience.
So go ahead--blame the parents--miserable, beleaguered, desperate and who will do anything for the children that they love to protect them from the teachers, administrators and other forces who really do NOT love their children.
2) What's that you say, when the suggestion that the City should take over the LAUSD because the LAUSD spends money like drunken sailors, has horrible land use decision-making, doesn't create enough library and open space requirements for the students, and doesn't give a rip about the taxpaying citizenry and their children?
Well, the City of Los Angeles is just as horrible--they underfund the parks, the voters had to fight to assure the future of our library system, the Casden and Millennium projects are first-rate failures of proper planning, and the City Council and Mayor come across too often as caring more about its public sector unions than the taxpaying citizenry who pay for it all.
It would be very smart indeed to combine the parks and library systems of the City and the LAUSD so that the local school would be the local park/open space/playground...but I'm sure that City and LAUSD insiders would consider that "crazy talk" while the average person reading this would remember how this used to be the case before LAUSD "turf" was fenced off from the taxpaying neighbors to access outside of school hours.
3) So what sort of courageous moves should be made for Walgrove and the local schools?
Certainly my "Alpern Plan" based off the feedback of others would never fly: have the Mandarin Immersion or another program go to the more spacious and traffic-accessible Daniel Webster Middle School K-8 to make room at Broadway, don't touch a single green space/soccer field (and build them at every elementary and middle school in Mar Vista and the Westside), and reclassify Walgrove as a residential street.
And as far as I am concerned, if Mark Twain is a school that the locals don't want to go to, then downsize it accordingly and stop playing games "to bolster enrollment". Citywide, school enrollment is going down--and schools should be allowed to consolidate and save funds and resources, accordingly. Or maybe just keep things the way they are and reduce class sizes.
The option of turning schools into City parks should be considered--but ONLY City parks, and not mixed-use 4-5 story developments to make money for either the LAUSD or the City of Los Angeles.
Because HERE'S a novel idea, for those running the LAUSD and the City into the ground: it's NOT your land, it's NOT your money, and it's NOT your authority on which decisions are ultimately to be decided for the benefit of the citizenry of Los Angeles.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] He also does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 37
Pub: May 5, 2015
