Communities – Page 2 – Zev Yaroslavsky

Scratching a $33,413-a-month itch

January 29, 2014 No Comments

Fleas used to wreak havoc at county shelters. Now donated spot treatments are spelling relief.

We all have our baggage. Take the 70,000-plus dogs and cats that arrive each year at Los Angeles County’s animal shelters. Think they come alone? Think again.

“Ohhhhh,” laughs John Gonzales, a former animal control officer who is now president of the nonprofit Los Angeles County Animal Care Foundation. “Ticks and fleas.”

“All it takes is for one dog to show up with a couple and within 20 minutes they all have them,” says Gonzales, whose organization supports the county shelters through fundraising for spay-and-neuter programs, pet adoptions and other animal welfare initiatives.

“And then if you adopt the animal out, even if you give him a quick bath, people will come back complaining that not only does their new pet have fleas, but their whole house is infested. It’s not a pleasant situation. And that’s not including what the poor animal goes through.”

That scenario used to play out with dispiriting frequency at county shelters, where intake workers rarely had the time or budget to do more than spritz flea spray onto the itchier-looking arrivals, and where managers periodically had to call pest control companies in to treat the kennels.

“The ticks were especially hard to get rid of,” says Animal Care and Control Director Marcia Mayeda, ”because they can jump off the animals and hide, even in the crevices of broken concrete.”

For the past three years, however, the county has been deploying a secret weapon, donated through the Foundation from a pet products manufacturer.

“Now, when animals are brought in, they get a physical, vaccinations and a spot treatment of flea medication,” says Mayeda, crediting a $33,413-per-month, in-kind gift of Frontline Plus by the Georgia-based Merial Corp.

“We still obviously clean and disinfect our kennels daily but we no longer have to bring in people to treat them for ticks and fleas.”

The product donation, which is not unusual between manufacturers and pet advocacy organizations, is part of Merial’s “Partners in Protection” community outreach program to shelters and veterinarians.

Nikkia Starks, director of consumer marketing at Merial, says the program has connected with more than 50 shelter clinics across the country to help protect pets from fleas, ticks and heartworm disease while educating shelter staff and pet owners on the importance of preventative pet health care. The Los Angeles County gift, she adds, is among its larger ones.

Though some municipalities have agreed to tout Merial’s products in return for their donations, the county’s use of the product carries no such conditions. Rather, Gonzales says, Merial donates supplies of Frontline Plus to the Foundation, which then passes it on to the county’s seven animal shelters. “We’re kind of the middle man,” he says.

The foundation’s nonprofit status, he adds, offers the manufacturer a tax break without obligating the county to serve as a marketing partner. Mayeda says Merial approached the county in 2011 with the offer. Recognizing the brand, she in turn took it to Gonzales, she says.

Such spot treatments—so called because the pesticide is applied on a spot of skin at the back of the animal’s neck so the pet can’t accidentally ingest it—typically keep pets flea-free for up to 30 days at a time, but tend to be pricey. Frontline Plus, for instance, retails in pet stores for up to $18 per dose.

“We never used it before because we couldn’t afford it,” says Mayeda. “But our flea and tick problem has gone from an ongoing concern to pretty much nonexistent, and it has made a big difference in the overall health of the animals, and in customer service as well.”

Posted 1/23/14

Dave+Apollo=animal attraction

February 28, 2013 No Comments

This really is a bird of another feather.

For starters, she’s got a masculine name—Apollo. But that’s nothing compared to this: She’s got a serious turkey vulture crush on a bearded, soft-spoken Los Angeles County worker named Dave Stives.

Stives, the county’s regional animal keeper, has become accustomed to Apollo working herself into a hormonal tizzy when he nears her enclosure at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center in the Antelope Valley, especially during spring mating season. Among other things, she spins in circles and flaunts her tale. “A courtship dance,” says Stives.

Apollo and Stives first met nearly a decade ago. Apollo had been hit by a vehicle in Virginia and was shipped west for treatment at a private facility in the Antelope Valley. A tendon in Apollo’s wing had been damaged, thus bringing her flying days to an end. In those early days, Stives had helped in her care and training. Two years later, when the private facility went under, Apollo was moved to the county’s Placerita Canyon center. It was love at second sight.

“She remembered me and trusted me,” Stives says. That was seven years ago, he says, and the relationship is still going strong. “She follows me around like a puppy dog,” Stives says affectionately of the black-feathered, red-headed vulture.

Stives, 48, has worked as an animal keeper for the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation for some 14 years. He’s responsible for the seven nature centers and parks that house a menagerie of animals, including birds, possums, raccoons, rattlesnakes—“probably anything that is indigenous in the state,” he says. He travels from one facility to the next making sure all are in compliance with state and federal laws governing everything from the diet of the animals to their educational use, a requirement for the county to keep them. “We make sure they have the best possible life under our care,” Stives says.

At home, Stives also has some feathered and furry friends—two dogs, two cats, three falcons, plus a snake. As a “master falconer,” he takes his birds into the wild, where he’s “conditioned” them to circle overhead as he beats the bushes for rabbits. The falcons then swoop in.

As for Apollo, she now spends her weekends with Stives at educational animal shows, dispelling myths of vultures as the creepy outcasts of the bird world. “She’s actually quite pretty,” he says. “In her own way.”

To see the two in their native habitat, click on the video above.

Posted 2/28/13

Beverly Hills cultivates some history

February 7, 2013 No Comments

The Virginia Robinson estate is now a federal, state and city landmark.

Virginia Robinson put Beverly Hills on the map as an enclave of the rich and famous. Now, more than a century later, Beverly Hills has returned the favor to its storied grand dame.

The Virginia Robinson Gardens, bequeathed to Los Angeles County after its namesake’s death in 1977, last month became an official local historic landmark. Built in 1911 by the Robinson’s department store heir Harry Winchester Robinson and his then-new bride, Virginia, the 6½-acre estate on Elden Way—now run under the auspices of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation—has long held landmark status at the state and national level.

“This was essentially the first great estate in Beverly Hills,” explains Robinson Gardens Superintendent Timothy Lindsay.

Virginia Robinson with one of her beloved pets.

But Beverly Hills created its historic designation only a year ago, prompted by the near-demolition of an architecturally significant house designed by Richard Neutra. The city has since named seven local landmarks, with more in the pipeline, according to Noah Furie, a former Beverly Hills planning commissioner and founding chairman of the city’s new Cultural Heritage Commission.

The Robinson estate was the second property in the city to receive the designation, after the neighboring Beverly Hills Hotel.

“This is one of the most unique properties in our city,” says Furie. “With all its different types of gardens, and its owners being the founders of one of Los Angeles’ most important department store chains, and their many contributions to the immediate and greater community, it checked off multiple criteria in our ordinance.”

Furie says the new local ordinance has proven to be a milestone for Beverly Hills. Even before the aborted demolition of Neutra’s Kronish House in 2011, preservationists had feared for the city’s architectural history.

“It was getting to the point that, if we didn’t do something, our past would be lost forever,” he says. “Significant estates done by master architects had been subdivided into multiple properties. We’d lost, including major remodels, the Burton Green estate, the Max Whittier estate, the Gershwin House—the list is a mile long.”

Robinson Gardens has the largest King Palm collection in the continental U.S.

The new preservation ordinance imposes strict rules for changing or demolishing buildings that are older than 45 years and that either have some historic or cultural significance or are designed by master architects.

The Robinsons discovered their site in the early 1900s while searching for the Los Angeles Country Club in what was then the rural edge of the city. When they finished the house, designed for them as a wedding gift by Virginia’s father, architect Nathaniel Dryden, fields of barley stretched before them to the horizon.

But as the city grew up, the property, which was landscaped by Virginia and a dozen full-time gardeners into an expansive collection of lush, terraced gardens, became a public gathering place and an A-list destination. The Italianate pool house alone was 3,000 square feet and the palm grove still boasts the largest collection of Australian king palms in the continental United States.

Celebrities from Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers cavorted at the Robinsons’ lavish parties, as did a who’s who of Southern California society and business. Even after Harry Robinson died in 1932, Virginia—who took over the department store chain that her husband’s father had founded—maintained the civic momentum, accompanied by her beloved pets (she never had children and never remarried). For 33 years, her home was the site of a famed Hollywood Bowl kickoff gala; her last major domo came from the Vatican and spoke five languages, according to the estate superintendent Lindsay.

“Virginia Robinson worked with Dorothy Chandler to build the Music Center, she was great friends with Lillian Disney and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor,” Lindsay says.

And, he adds, Virginia adhered to a level of hospitality that would have impressed Downton Abbey.

“She had a large staff of 21 trained in the same level of etiquette as the White House,” says Lindsay. “After 6 p.m., the men all had to put on black tie and tails. Invitations were handwritten. There was always valet parking. When you arrived at the house, one man in white gloves would open the gate and another would open the door and announce your arrival, and she would meet you in the receiving line.

“Remember, Southern California was still pretty much a dusty cowboy town, in those days. But she set a standard for gracious living. She had a legendary elegance.”

Beverly Hills was a frontier in 1911, when the Robinson estate was built.

Posted 2/7/13

Everyone should count

January 24, 2013 No Comments

Homeless Count organizers are hoping for an even bigger volunteer turnout than in 2011. Photo/L.A. Times.

For Los Angeles to effectively confront the shame of homelessness, it needs a clear picture of the problem. And the 2013 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count—the largest of its kind in the country—is preparing to undertake its most ambitious effort yet to bring the issue into sharper focus—hopefully, with your help.

“We have three thousand volunteers so far, and we’re trying to get to five thousand,” said Mark Silverbush, policy and planning analyst for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which organizes the count and coordinates regional efforts to assist the homeless. “We will have more data available than ever before.”

Silverbush said that more than 70 cities and 20 communities are joining the effort

Volunteers aged 18 and older can sign up online to participate in the count throughout L.A. County, except in the cities of Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach, which are doing their own independent tallies. By car and by foot, teams of 3 or 4 counters will fan out to assigned areas to count homeless individuals, as well as tents and vehicles in which people appear to be sleeping. Friends can group together. The process takes about 4 to 5 hours, including the pre-count training.

Most counts take place at night when people are bedding down, which makes it easier to identify who is homeless, Silverbush said. Volunteers are instructed to keep a respectful distance and not engage the homeless population.

Homeless counts are required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The collected information is required to obtain federal monies to combat homelessness and is used to apply for other government funding.

“There are a lot of agencies and organizations and we all have anecdotes about the work we are doing, but it really helps to have these statistics,” Silverbush explained. “This is our once-in-every-two-years opportunity to refresh that data and make a difference in people’s lives.”

The count will take place during the course of three days. On Tuesday, January 29, volunteers will count in the San Gabriel Valley and East L.A. On Wednesday, January 30, they’ll head to West L.A. and the South Bay region. Finally, on Thursday, January 31, counters will canvass the Antelope Valley during the day and then, at night, move to the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, Downtown L.A. and South L.A.

This week, agencies that focus on youth homelessness undertook a countywide count of unaccompanied minors and transition-aged homeless youth between 18 and 24. Agency staffers recruited homeless and formerly homeless youths to help identify young people living on the streets. They also sought information about the population’s sexuality and how many came from foster care.

“The housing barriers that homeless youth face seem to be different,” Silverbush said. “We are looking at the research to figure out what the best interventions are. There are a lot of ideas out there, but not a lot of off-the-shelf ideas that we can really plug in and use.”

In February, advocates plan to undertake a separate survey of the adult population to collect further demographic data. They’ll use a matrix developed for the “housing first” program Project 50 to identify the most vulnerable homeless individuals, or those most likely to die on the streets.

A milestone gift for L.A.’s trails

September 20, 2012 No Comments

The Backbone Trail is one of 7 projects benefiting from an infusion of grant funds. Photo/National Park Service

The Backbone Trail is one celebrity-owned property and an easement short of completion. The Cold Creek High Trail is just three parcels shy of being in public hands. Just one 700-foot path and hikers and horseback riders on the Las Virgenes Creek Trail will no longer have to pull up short at the Ventura Freeway.

But those gaps and more may soon be bridged with the help of some $3.2 million in county grants.

Generated by the county’s 1996 Proposition A park bond, and approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, the grants promise to make a big difference for nature enthusiasts in the Santa Monica Mountains, where some of Southern California’s best-known and most beloved trails are tantalizingly close to full public ownership.

Although the mountains have long been regarded as a public treasure, their property lines are actually a public-private patchwork, and many trails, habitats and watersheds run through private backyards and no-trespassing areas. Environmental advocates have worked for decades to acquire key lots and easements, and to forge connections among the trails that crisscross the peaks and canyons.

This week’s grants, spread among seven projects and ranging from $59,438 to $500,000, come from a pot that is periodically disbursed to fund parkland and open spaces, but this round is expected to make an especially big impact.

One $500,000 grant, for example, would get the ball rolling on a 110-acre addition to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The acreage, in Malibu’s Ramirez Canyon, “is a critical element . . . in filling a major gap in public ownership in the Santa Monica Mountains,” says Sam Hodder, who directs the Trust for Public Land in California. Among other things, Hodder says, the property includes a sensitive oak woodland habitat and a vulnerable stream that flows directly into Santa Monica Bay.

Another $500,000 grant, to the Mountains Restoration Trust, would complete the acquisition of the last three private parcels along the Cold Creek High Trail Project, adding 17.4 acres and 1.63 miles of trail between Stunt and Cold Canyon Roads. The extension will not only restore a longstanding neighborhood hiking and equestrian trail that was badly damaged in the fires and floods of the early 1990s, but—more importantly—will protect the Cold Creek watershed, a key habitat for mountain wildlife.

A third $500,000 chunk of change will go toward the Don Wallace Trail Project, a new path that will finally give hikers and equestrians safe passage down through the underpasses at the 101 Freeway and Agoura Road in Calabasas and on into Malibu Creek State Park.

And perhaps the most exciting grant, for $465,000, will allow the National Park Service to complete the Backbone Trail, one of the best known and most heavily used trails in Los Angeles County. For some 30 years, more than 35 organizations have been trying to obtain a public right-of-way across all of the 177 pieces of property that the trail crosses as it wends its way over the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains to the Pacific.

As of this year, only two parcels remained outstanding. A tentative agreement to convey an easement for one of them recently was reached with the National Park Service, according to Melanie Beck, who handles land deals for the NPS in the Santa Monica Mountains.

When the easement is finalized, it will leave just one incomplete spot on the 65-mile trail: a 40-acre swath of chaparral in Trancas Canyon owned by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Betty Weider, the 77-year-old wife of Schwarzenegger’s longtime friend and business partner, the fitness magazine publisher Joe Weider.

A spokesman for the governor confirmed this week that Schwarzenegger and Weider were approached years ago about the acreage but no agreement was reached. Schwarzenegger, the spokesman added, “remains open to meeting and talking about it again.” Weider could not immediately be reached.

The grants represent a big moment in the long-running effort to create a network of public pathways through the mountains.

“We need to celebrate the years of hard work that have gone into building the trail system,” Beck said. “With these accomplishments, we can help share and publicize this trail system with the many groups that wish to enjoy the Santa Monica Mountains long into the future.”

Posted 9/20/12

A mountain welcome

May 31, 2012 No Comments

The Visitor Center is in the former stables of the King Gillette Ranch, near Calabasas.

Few wilderness areas are as easy to visit as the Santa Monica Mountains—or as challenging for the average visitor to understand.

Sprawled over 153,000 acres and stretched along 44 miles of coastline, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is part federal, part state and part local. Its ownership is an alphabet soup of government agencies and nonprofits; its internal boundaries are a public-private jigsaw puzzle.

Just figuring out which trails permit dogs can be a project. Yet the closest thing it has had to a visitor’s center has been a far-off office in a Thousand Oaks municipal complex.

Now, after years of planning and study, the nation’s largest urban national park finally has built a true, central gateway where the public can stop for information about its trails, beaches, amenities and wildlife.

On June 9, the Anthony C. Beilenson Interagency Visitor Center will open to the public in the heart of the recreation area, on the grounds of the former King Gillette Ranch near Calabasas.

“This is fantastic,” said Lisa Soghor, deputy executive officer for the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which manages the ranch and co-hosted a press tour this week in advance of the grand opening. “To have it here, at the heart of the mountains, in the center of the recreation area, is just really a dream come true.”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky agreed.

“The King Gillette property is one of the most beautiful in the Santa Monica Mountains,” said Yaroslavsky, whose 3^rdDistrict includes the recreation area. “It’s centrally located in the national and state park, making it a great location for the Visitors Center. And it’s rightly named after former Congressman Anthony Beilenson, who had so much to do with the preservation of the Santa Monica Mountains.”

Park ranger demonstrates new interactive map.

The new center, near the intersection of Las Virgenes Road and the Old Mulholland Highway, will also reflect the colorful history of one of Southern California’s most storied ranches. The Spanish-style building, erected in 1928, is the former horse stable of a 588-acre estate developed by King Camp Gillette, the razor-blade baron, and designed by famed Los Angeles architect Wallace Neff.

After Gillette’s death, the ranch—which he described as “paradise on earth, California style”—had a cavalcade of quintessentially Californian owners. MGM director Clarence Brown, partied and filmed on it from 1935 until the 1950s. Then it was sold to the Claretian Order of the Catholic Church, which used it as a seminary until the mid-1970s.

As urban development encroached on the mountains, neighboring homeowners lobbied the state to buy and preserve it. But in 1978, the land was sold to the Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age doomsday sect that renamed it “Camelot” and moved its headquarters into the verdant, mountain-ringed valley.

That incarnation lasted until the mid-1980s, when the church moved to a remote plot in Montana, where members began preparing for Armageddon. (“You have 10 million auras in Los Angelesand here you have wide open space,” the church leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, explained.)

In 1986, Soka University of America, a liberal arts college financed by a Japan-based lay Buddhist organization, bought the ranch and announced plans to build a campus. But by now, local homeowners and environmental groups were organized enough to block the development. The appeals and lawsuits lasted until 2005, when an unprecedented coalition of government agencies, including Los Angeles County, raised $34 million to buy the land and turn it into the recreation area’s gateway.

“As with many important parkland acquisitions, it took more years and more battles than we had anticipated—but it also consolidated the resolve of state, federal and local park agencies to make this happen,” said Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Until now, the ranch has been mainly been known as the site of the reality TV show, “The Biggest Loser,” which leases the estate’s property. This week, however, the new Visitor Center stepped into the spotlight, with rooms full of colorful displays and exhibits and a top-of-the-line LEED Platinum certification for environmental sustainability.

One of many wildlife displays at the center.

“We are proud to say that this is the first ‘net zero’ Visitor Center in the National Park System,” National Park Service Acting Superintendent Lorenza Fong noted, adding that the center will produce all of its own energy through a photovoltaic solar energy system. The historic building was remodeled and preserved with $9.5 million in federal stimulus grants.

Named for the congressman who introduced the 1978 legislation creating the recreation area, the center will be jointly staffed and managed by the recreation area’s major operators: the National Park Service, the California State Parks, MRCA and the Conservancy.

At the press tour, rangers proudly showed off the front desk made from recycled materials and a “virtual postcard” booth that allows visitors to photograph themselves against a background of the recreation area’s breathtaking scenery.

Most impressive, however, was an interactive display that cuts through the confusion over which rules apply in which sections of the recreation area’s vast network of parklands. It’s a useful tool, because, even on the trails around the Visitors Center, they change. Because the National Park Service allows dogs and the State Parks don’t, for instance, only the immediate grounds of the center allow pets on leashes; cross a bridge onto the parts of the recreation area owned by the state or MRCA, and dogs are forbidden.

“It’s still an issue,” laughed NPS Supervisory Park Ranger Barbara Applebaum, education supervisor for the center. But with a touch of the screen, she was able to highlight a host of places within the recreation area that were perfect for every variety of visitor—families, bicyclists, wildflower enthusiasts, serious hikers, swimmers and even canines.

The Visitor Center is at 26876 Mulholland Highway, Calabasas, and free to the public. The Grand Opening, with food trucks, live music and activities for all ages, will be June 9 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 805-370-2301 or visit www.nps.gov/samo. For directions and a flier, click here.

Posted 5/31/12

A blossoming of international goodwill

March 21, 2012 No Comments

Cherry blossoms at Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge, where a festival will be held this weekend.

It’s cherry blossom time again, and not just in Washington, D.C.

Southern California will be showered with more delicate pink petals than ever this year, as the region helps observe the 100-year anniversary of a goodwill gesture that turned our nation’s capitol into a blossoming, seasonal Mecca—a 1912 gift from Tokyo of more than 3,000 ornamental cherry trees.

At least a dozen local Cherry Blossom festivals have been scheduled, and trees have been planted from Los Angeles’ Roosevelt High School to Griffith Park. Meanwhile, in May, about 18 saplings will be planted in the new 12-acre Civic Park that’s being developed between City Hall and the Music Center. Embracing the spirit of a century ago, the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles helped coordinate the donation of most of the region’s new trees through non-profit groups.

A sapling grows in Griffith Park

“Cherry blossom trees are a living testament to the friendship between Japan and the United States,” says Jun Niimi, Consul General of Japan in Los Angeles.

Elegant and evanescent, Japanese cherry blossom trees, or sakura, are a beloved sign of spring in that country. Few experiences are as dreamlike as the traditional picnic under a cherry tree in full bloom, as leafless boughs create clouds of pale blossoms and petals float on the wind.

The trees took hold in this country early in the 20^thcentury, after Eliza Scidmore, a Washington socialite and travel writer, experienced them in Japan during a trip with her diplomat brother, and returned in 1885 with the notion that they should be planted on reclaimed parkland along the Potomac River.

The National Park Service has the full history, but the shorter version is that for the next 20-plus years, she unsuccessfully lobbied five presidential administrations. Finally, after an official from the U.S. Department of Agriculture proved the trees could survive here, Scidmore caught the attention of First Lady Helen “Nellie” Taft, who had visited Japan while her husband was governor-general of the Philippines during the McKinley Administration. The First Lady got 90 cherry trees planted along the Potomac, then accepted a donation from the Japanese government for thousands more saplings. Although pests infested the first shipment, nearly causing a diplomatic incident, the Japanese followed up with a new donation, and 3,020 cherry trees arrived by rail in Washington,D.C., on March 26, 1912.

By the 1930s, Japan-U.S. tree exchanges had spread throughout the country. In 1933, Los Angeles papers reported that the Japanese Chamber of Commerce was “strengthening the bond of friendship between America and Japan” by seeding Griffith Park with 375 cherry trees.

A traditional picnic under the sakura in Japan.

In 1941, four of the Washington, D.C., trees were vandalized after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but they generally remained a positive symbol. In fact, the largest stand in Los Angeles County was the result of international goodwill, albeit of the corporate variety. In 1990 and 2009, the Canare Corp., a Japan-based cable manufacturer, donated a total of more than 1,000 cherry trees to Los Angeles to plant at Lake Balboa in the Sepulveda Basin.

“They had an office in the San Fernando Valley and wanted to give back to the city,” recalls James Ward, who at the time was in charge of the maintenance division of the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. “They even sent some of us back to learn how the Japanese maintain the trees.”

The saplings being donated in Southern California this year have come mainly from two programs, one local, one national.

Locally, the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino made about 1,000 cherry trees available earlier this year to cities and civic groups throughout the region; the trees were mostly of the “Pink Cloud” variety, a unique West Coast hybrid that appeared as a volunteer seedling at the gardens in the 1960s. Nationally, the National Arbor Day Foundation, American Forests, the Japanese Embassy and a variety of Japan-America organizations have joined in a Nationwide Cherry Blossom Tree Planting Initiative to plant some 2,000 more trees.

Of course, beauty has its price. Frank McDonough, botanical information consultant at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden notes that, except for the Pink Clouds and a few other varieties, the trees aren’t a natural fit in toasty L.A..

“They’re terrible for the landscape, they’re heavy water users and if they don’t get the drainage they like, they’ll leave you.”

But he adds: “People like them—they’re sentimental. And they’re pretty spectacular while they’re here.”

The area’s largest stand of cherry trees is at Lake Balboa in Van Nuys, seen here in an earlier year.

Posted 3/21/12

A park’s legacy grows in Malibu

February 27, 2012 No Comments

Whimsical sculptures add charm to Malibu’s hard-working, and prize-winning, Legacy Park.

Legacy Park in Malibu has wildlife, sculptures, outdoor classrooms and five coastal habitats. But to understand why Los Angeles County’s most innovative new recreational area recently racked up its sixth award in 16 months of existence, you have to look deeper—underground, in fact.

Beneath its meandering walkways and drought-tolerant plantings, the 15-acre central park at Cross Creek Road and Pacific Coast Highway is actually a state-of-the-art system for capturing and cleaning urban runoff that would otherwise course to the ocean, carrying bacteria and trash.

Hidden pipes and filters, working in tandem with the park’s landscaping and Malibu’s existing storm water treatment facility, have trapped and decontaminated tens of millions of gallons of toxic storm water since the park opened in October, 2010.

“It’s pretty unique,” says Malibu City Manager Jim Thorsen, noting that the park was just named the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2011 Project of the Year for California—the latest in a long string of accolades.

This tiny Legacy Park fan is in his element.

“I don’t know of any other places that not only capture and treat their storm water, but then build a park around it and make it possible for visitors to come in and learn.”

The park grew out of longstanding concerns about bacterial contamination from runoff at Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon and Surfrider Beach. When winter storms strike in Southern California, the rains carry chemicals and debris into the Santa Monica Bay from as far away as Thousand Oaks and the Santa Monica Mountains, poisoning the ocean and polluting the beach.

Under pressure to comply with clean water mandates, the city bought a vacant lot and—with $13 million in funding amassed from private and public donors, including $700,000 in Proposition A park funds—began turning the dusty tract into what Thorsen has dubbed “an environmental cleaning machine.”

Runoff from some 337 surrounding acres flows into the park via three major storm drains, then is filtered through a system of screens to catch plastic bags, paper cups and other litter. Then the water runs through more filters to a 2.6 million gallon retention pond at the park’s center, where it sits while contaminants settle at the bottom of a natural sedimentation basin.

Finally, the water is piped to the other side of Civic Center Way, where the city’s storm water treatment facility can clean and disinfect it with ozone. Then the cleaned water is used to irrigate the park, or, on rare occasions, is discharged back into Malibu Creek.

“What has really surprised us is how well it has functioned,” says Thorsen. “We’ve seen water go in, the pond fill, the pumps and the system work to perfection, and the water recycle back into the park. It has worked out exactly as it was supposed to work.”

Kathy Haynes, who chaired the ASCE awards committee, calls the park “an innovative example of incorporating sustainability, showing environmental responsibility and using forward thinking.”

For Thorsen, however, the reward is in the number of calls he’s been getting from developers and communities interested in similar projects, and in the public response over the past year as Legacy Park has come to life.

“It looked like a barren desert, when we first planted it,” he says, “but everyone—the people, the birds, the animals—seems to love it. I’m amazed at how much things have grown in just one year.”

Legacy Park is proving that you don’t have to be a movie star to win awards in Malibu.

Posted 2/6/12

Want to be part of the solution? Some expert tips on how you can avoid contributing to urban runoff are here.

Deadly passage for a mountain lion

August 31, 2011 No Comments

He was little more than a teenager, strong and healthy, big for his age and not yet fully grown. What he was doing at night near the freeway is uncertain; those who knew him believe that like, most late adolescents, he was just looking for some turf that hadn’t already been claimed by others, just trying to strike out on his own.

In any case, the 15-month-old mountain lion known to the National Park Service as P-18 (the “P” stood for “Puma”) somehow wandered onto the 405 Freeway just south of the Getty Center southbound onramp shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday. His death was a hit-and-run.

“He was found at 7:30 am when traffic started backing up and the CHP went in and found a dead lion with a GPS collar,” says a stricken Christie Brigham, chief of planning, science and resource management for the Santa Monica National Recreation Area. Born last May in the Santa Monica Mountains and part of a decade-long national study, the lion’s movements had been tracked since he was three weeks old.

A total of 21 mountain lions have been tracked since 2002 in the area, says Woody Smeck, park superintendent in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Of those, Smeck says, only one is known to have successfully crossed a freeway. A lion known as P-12 crossed Highway 101 in 2009 into the Santa Monica Mountains near Liberty Canyon. He survived to father the cub who died this week.

Southern California’s freeways may not invite their denizens to think much about nature, but wildlife crossings are a significant transportation issue in L.A. Great swaths of natural habitat here are bisected by asphalt, which may impede the movement of coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, raccoons and other native species but doesn’t stop their instinct to travel in search of food and mates.

Wild animals require safe access to new territory so they don’t inbreed and endanger their species’ survival. Male mountain lions in particular tend to range widely, says Brigham, and previous tracking has shown them to range throughout the entirety of the Santa Monica Mountains, from Camarillo to the 405 Freeway.

P-18, she says, was one of four lions being tracked this summer; he had appeared to be slowly making his way east from his mother’s home range in Malibu Creek State Park. Radio telemetry signals from his collar placed him near the Getty Center around 4 a.m. just south of an onramp

“We suspect there was another, untagged, male lion using that part of the moutain, which meant it wasn’t an open territory for him as a young male,” says Brigham. “We think he was trying to disperse out of the Santa Monicas in search of open space when he was hit.”

Brigham says the area where P-18 died has been especially lethal to wildlife. “We found an un-collared, road-killed lion in the same area in 2008, “ she says.

Moreover, she says, P-18’s life might have been spared had he padded a mile or so further north to the Sepulveda Boulevard undercrossing. Motion-sensitive cameras, which have been set up there to track wildlife, have shown that, while it is not the ideal wildlife crossing—it was built for 4-wheeled vehicles, not 4-legged creatures—and rarely used by mountain lions, it is heavily used by other wildlife with relative safety.

Unbroken fencing might have funneled the lion to a safe passage, says Brigham. “But there was nothing to direct him to that area.”

Wildlife issues have been under discussion with Caltrans and other agencies as part of the 405 freeway widening project, says Brigham, but money has been tight and fencing proposals have run up against right-of-way and setback issues.

“There are rules about how far the fence has to be from the roadway,” she points out, “and not all of the land involved is Caltrans right-of-way.”

Plans for improved lighting and wildlife access are in the works in a few spots including the Skirball Center Drive bridge area and the Bel Air Crest Road undercrossing, “but the ultimate solution is to put in wildlife crossings that will be effective and funnel animals to the appropriate place.”

The 405 isn’t the only freeway with a wildlife problem; Highways 101 and 118 also bisect important habitat. Nor is the issue just one of road-kill—a wild animal trapped on a freeway is lethal to motorists, too.

Caltrans has applied for a $10 million federal grant to build a wildlife tunnel in Agoura Hills under the 101 at Liberty Canyon Road, says Francis Appiah, an associate environmental planner and natural scientist at the state agency. But the grant has yet to be approved.

“Investing in connected pieces of parkland and constructing wildlife crossings along major freeways around Los Angeles is essential for long term mountain lion survival in the Santa Monica Mountains,” says park superintendent Smeck.

Leaf peeping, Beverly Hills-style

February 14, 2011 No Comments

If you think of fall color as a strictly New England phenomenon, you haven’t visited the county’s Virginia Robinson Gardens in Beverly Hills. These photos, with radiant persimmon trees providing much of the autumnal mood, showcase some of what can be found in the Italian Terrace section of the garden as the weather gets cooler. Garden superintendent Tim Lindsay, who took the photos, notes that all the plants are drought-tolerant. “I try to capture it every year,” he said. “It just seems to get better.” Visitors require reservations for the garden’s guided tours, which are offered Tuesday through Friday. Admission prices and other information is here.