Odds and Ends 1

Howdy all,

As with my www.pontevista.blogspot.com blog, I will now start a weekly post dealing with recent developments on the efforts by thousands of local residents who seek to maintain the quality of life they have worked so hard for in San Pedro and surrounding areas.

Sometimes I will include items that are the same on both blogs. But I will try to separate the issues in the best ways I can find.

Please view the line breaks as the line between issues.
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I begin with a really giant beg on everyone wanting to visit the new Marshall's Store with its grand opening of March 6, 2008, on the top level of The Terraces shopping area.

Both of the left turn pockets, one at the south entrance and the other at Caddington Drive have become extremely too short to handle the always-increasing vehicle traffic into the site.

During the late afternoon and dinner hours, the pockets get so backed up that traffic trying to continue northbound on Western Avenue is having trouble.

My beg is to consider visiting the new store at hours other than when it opens during the day and from between 4:00 PM and 6:30 PM. You will be doing yourself more of a favor to you and your neighbors than you can do for me. I get to walk (after I get my hip replaced) to the new store and Terri can't wait to have it open.

The turning pockets all along Western will become more of a problem as the months and years progress, so please note that fact.

It is true that some of the mitigation suggested by Bob Bisno for his Ponte Vista development does involve lengthening SOME turning pockets, but unless and until he reconsiders the total number of units at he weapon of mass development, there really is absolutely no reason to have the current zoning of R1 changed on that site.
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On Monday February 25, 2008, I think many of you living more towards the coastline of San Pedro might want to attend the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council meeting.

It begins at 6:30 and is held at the Cabrillo Marina Community Center, behind the hotel in the Cabrillo Marina.

You might want to get there early because Bruce will probably have to count the attendees several times and it will probably be a record turnout, for that meeting.

Two major issues will have folks wanting to speak at that meeting. There is an agenda item to discuss a motion to support VDONAC and their call for having NO CONDOS at the site of the former McCowan's Market.

VONDAC is a group of neighbors who organized quickly, found a simple common goal to demand, and is working to preserve the quality of life in their neighborhood.

We all should be proud to have these great neighbors in OUR community.

There is another group, looking like it is forming about as quickly and strongly as VDONAC formed. This group of neighbors live primarily in the Palisades neighborhood of San Pedro and they are not sitting still while L.A.U.S.D. plans to build a senior high school, in their neighborhood, at Angel's Gate.

The new group's concern is not on the agenda Monday night, but folks are still welcome to stand up and speak on non-agenda items, so this would be the time for the new group to speak up.

These folks seem equally willing to fight to keep the quality of life they have worked so hard to achieve and maintain, and as I have very recently seen, they are growing in numbers, almost by the hour.

Here we are watching two newer groups band together as so many banded together to create R Neighborhoods Are 1, and I feel we should watch with pride and amazement as these regular neighbors, friends, co-workers, and everyday folks, fight for their own causes.
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On the McCowan's front, the Board of Governors of Coastal S.P.N.C. will be presented with a motion to demonstrate their support for keeping Condos away from the corner of 20Th Street and Walker Avenue, in San Pedro.

Vista del Oro Neighbors Against Condos (VDONAC) has yard signs, buttons, and determination to assist the owner/developer find that it is in every body's interest to build 6 beautiful single-family, detached houses on the six lots that comprised the former markets building site and parking lots.
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You may want to take a gander at www.20thstreetcustomhomes.com and tell me what is wrong with the illustrations.

O.K., I'll give you a hint or two. This is the Web site for the first three single-family, detached dwellings to be built on the three lots zoned for those types of dwellings at the former market's site.

The floor plan shows a three-bedroom house in a single-story illustration, with a detached, two-car garage.

The photo illustrations and the virtual tour are of a two-story house with an attached garage on the first floor.

A VDONAC Board member and I, along with my wife Terri, did our best to try to explain to ourselves why we only saw a floor plan for a one-story house, but viewed really great photos and a virtual tour of a two-story house. What is going to be built at 1193 W. 20Th Street. By looking at the Web site, we still can't tell.
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South Region High School #15 (SRHS 15) is proposed to initially be an 810-seat four-year senior high school comprised of two academies and built near the intersection of Alma Street and 30Th Street, in San Pedro.

While I believe there probably should be a new high school in San Pedro, I strongly suggest that its current "preferred location" is extremely bad.

There seems to be quite a few neighbors living in the Palisades neighborhood who agree with me.

I will be posting more information about the folks who also think that placing a high school along Alma Street, oh I mean ANOTHER high school along Alma Street, is a bad ideal.

The new group opposing the placement of the school doesn't have a name yet, but I think within a few days, they will be quite organized.
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On the Ponte Vista issue, Bob is going to ask the Wilmington Neighborhood Council to approve motions concerning his mitigation ideas for traffic and also try to get that Board to endorse his current plans.

An agent for the Ironworkers Local 443 sent out a letter to members asking them to attend the meeting on Wednesday evening. I have more information on my Ponte Vista blog.

The L.A. Department of Transportation has issued their plans to have synchronized traffic signaling at 127 intersections in San Pedro and Terminal Island, by February, 2009. The have the funding planned and explained, too. In looking over the documentation, we find nowhere any funds coming from Bob Bisno. So Bob says HE will provide mitigation in the form of ATSAC funding, yet there is not dime one from Bob to pay for what is already funded, planned, and partially installed.

Several Rudderless Steering Committee members of R Neighborhoods Are 1 will also speak to the members of the Board of Wilmington N.C.. We hope to allow them the honor and privilege to do what four of the other Neighborhood Councils did in the area, and not specifically endorse any of Bob's current plans.

With five out of five, I think that will demonstrate a clean sweep for the benefit of all of us who live in San Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City, and surrounding areas.

The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council recently endorsed and sent to Ms. Gail Goldberg the Director of Planning for the City of Los Angeles, a letter stating their call, and our City's call for a new Environmental Impact Report to be circulated, with it necessary review and public comment period, for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro development
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Did you read in the article about Cafe Port Town's "temporary" closing, that another Condo project has become another lease-to-own, or rental property?

Along with Seaport Homes, "The Monster" on Western, that doesn't appear to have any residents yet, it seems that the percentage of condo units becoming lease-to-own or apartments, is growing.
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On blogs where I write "OUR community" it means that we all live in one community, whether it is in San Pedro, eastern Rancho Palos Verdes, southern Lomita, southern Harbor City, and anywhere else large developments or big businesses affect our way of lives.

OUR community is made up of the very neighborhoods who are fighting for their goal of keeping what they have built together, strong, vibrant, and at the highest quality possible.

OUR community includes two neighborhoods, one in San Pedro and one in Rancho Palos Verdes who are working together to achieve traffic calming in the Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood.

Over 11,000 members of OUR community signed R1 petitions stating their call to keep the Ponte Vista site with the current zoning it already has.

OUR community is San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes, and the unincorporated areas surrounded by San Pedro. It is also parts of Lomita, Wilmington, Harbor City and even a far away as south Torrance.

OUR community does not like it when out of town developers come into OUR community and proceed to tell us what is best for OUR community. Folks, we know what is best for OUR community and we have known it for generations.
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I'm done for now. Any comments?