Last
night, my wife and I went to our first community meeting
since we moved to Los Angeles. It was sponsored by
the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI) and the topic
was some improvements that are scheduled to be made in our
neighborhood. The meeting started at 7:00pm, with
refreshments served at 6:30. Originally I was going
to go alone, but my wife called at 6:20 to let me know that
she was done with work and would like to go with me, but
that she was starving. (This was not a surprise--the
starving part, that is. The part where she actually
wanted to go to the meeting was a surprise.) I suggested
we get a little something to eat there and then grab some
dinner afterward, which was okay with her.
My
wife got home at 6:50 and we shot out the door, hoping
that we wouldn't miss the refreshments. We got to the
meeting right about at 7:00 and I went to sign us in;
you know where my wife went. Looking around, I saw there
were between 20-30 people there, many of them in their
50s or 60s. There weren't too many people in their 30s,
but there were a few. I jotted down our info and headed
over to get some food.
Looking back, I guess I'm not exactly sure what I expected
by way of "refreshments."
MENU
A bowl of tortilla chips
A bowl of Pace Picante salsa (mild)
An assortment of cookies (including vanilla wafers and
those long, thin ones that taste like styrofoam)
Strawberry Shasta
Water
We
should have taken that as a sign, but we didn't.
The
meeting started with a representative from LANI introducing
a few different people. She then moved on to explaining
the planned neighborhood improvements. The focus of
the improvements is a business district called Little
Ethiopia, which is adjacent to our neighborhood. As
we learned, there are some planned facade improvements,
removal of tree grates, new street banners and a new
covered bus stop waiting area. (The bus stop issue was
quite important to Anonymous Woman #1, as she pumped
her fists above her head when it was announced, like
she had just won the heavyweight championship or something.)
All of these improvements will take place on Fairfax
between Olympic and Whitworth.
For
those not from the area, this constitutes one block.
The whole point of this meeting was to discuss some
superficial changes to ONE BLOCK?!? We were less
than five minutes in and I was ready to leave.
But I hadn't finished my cookies, so we stuck around.
Next
up was a fellow from Studio One Eleven, a Long Beach
company responsible for the final facade designs.
He had a PowerPoint slide show set up to project on
a big screen, which allowed the whole group to follow
along with him. He explained to us that the project
had very limited funds, so they had to carefully choose
which facades they would improve. After six months
of deliberation, they finally selected the four businesses
they would work on. Yes, you read that right.
This was bureaucracy at its finest.
The
facade designer then began showing depictions of the
planned improvements. He noted that the colors in the
slides weren't necessarily the exact colors that would
be used, but that there were paint samples along with
the designs on a board at the front of the room. I must
say that all of the designs looked like nice improvements
to the selected buildings.
The
first slide was of a curved building that opens onto
a street corner. It's going to be painted an olive
green with a white racing stripe that follows the curve
of the structure. This was clearly depicted on
the slide, as well as clearly described by the designer.
At this point, Anonymous Woman #2 stopped the show to
ask the designer to describe the color scheme to her.
He patiently repeated everything he had just said and
reminded her about the paint samples. She appeared
to write down everything he said.
We
then went on to the next slide, after which Anonymous
Man #1 asked why they hadn't decided to do more improvements.
The designer again explained that there were limited
funds, and that this was all they could afford to do.
Was nobody listening when he said that before?
By
the time we got to the third slide, the designer was
getting the hang of it, thoroughly explaining the color
scheme on the slide as well as noting up front that
they couldn't do more due to limited funds. Of
course, that didn't stop Anonymous Woman #2 from asking
him to explain all the colors in detail to her, which
she once again recorded on her notepad. Evidently,
she failed to write down the part about the paint samples
the first time around.
During
the fourth slide, things went about the same, with the
designer explaining that they chose to paint some details
rather than build them due to limited funds. This
comment was immediately followed with another question
from Anonymous Man #1 about why they didn't add some
additional improvements. I think at this point
I sprained an eye from rolling it too hard.
The
designer closed his presentation with an explanation
that they chose these buildings based on which ones
needed the most improvements. If that was the case,
I wondered, then why did it take six months to choose
them? Wisely, I kept my mouth shut. Anonymous Man #2 asked,
"Then why wasn't 7/11 chosen?" This was actually
a valid question, as the neighborhood 7/11 is pretty
much an eyesore. The LANI woman explained that they
contacted 7/11, but that they were not interested in
being a part of the project.
Then
the fun began. The next question was from Anonymous
Man #1 again. "But why didn't you guys do something
to the 7/11?" The LANI woman explained that 7/11
was contacted, but they declined to be a part of the
improvements. The third question was from Anonymous
Woman #1. "But why didn't you plant some trees
or something in front of the 7/11?" I kid you not.
It looked like the LANI woman was about to lose it,
but luckily the designer jumped in and fielded this
question. That mercifully ended the Studio One Eleven
presentation, at which point someone began applauding,
which inspired my wife to comment, "There's one
in every crowd."
Next
up was the street banner presentation. I don't
know how that went, because we left.
I imagine it will be a long while before we waste our
time like that again. LANI woman, if you are reading
this--I think the meeting would have been more productive
if you had spiked the strawberry Shasta with Ritalin.
Just something to consider.
Martell
can be reached at martell@babblog.com.
|
