Santa Monica Dispatch

Only a few names explode in our heads, tumbling endless reels of images, sounds, ideas, memories together in glorious profusion.

Brando is one of those names.

Calling Marlon Brando an actor is like calling Einstein a physicist or Shakespeare a writer or Everest a mountain. Brando was THE actor. To paraphrase Mikhail Baryshnikov in an American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire, everyone else is acting, Brando’s doing something else.

He was an encyclopedia of emotions, a museum of expressions, a gymnasium of gestures, He was also a trickster, a wizard, a mischief maker. He was always serious, but never solemn. He didn’t simply play characters, he owned them. If, as Harold Bloom has said, Shakespeare invented human beings. Brando invented behavior in the fag end of the 20th century.

He was born in the Jazz Age, grew up in the Great Depression, and came of age the year America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. All of that undoubtedly worked on him, but it was what was in him and what he did with it that mesmerizes us.

Brando was his own explanation. And, as it has turned out, ours.

A documentary, Brando, is making its world premiere on Turner Classic Movies (channel 292 on Time Warner Cable in Santa Monica) this month,

A number of people appear in the film, who knew and worked with Brando, including Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan and Ellen Adler,daughter of his first acting teacher, Stella Adler. Also featured are film clips of and interviews with Brando.

The documentary was made by the the Greif Co. for Turner Classic Movies. Leslie Grief produced it, Mimi Freedman wrote the teleplay. Bryan Richert was the editor. Andrea Morricone composed the score. David Thomson served as consultant.

Brando: Part I will run Tuesday, May 1, ar 5 and 8 p.m. Four of his films will also be shown: The Men, 6 p.m., Streetcar Named Desire, 9:30 p.m., Guys and Dolls, 11:45 p,m. and Teahouse of the August Moon, 2:30
a.m.

Brando: Part II will run Wednesday, May 2, at 5 and 8 p.m.. Four of his films will also be shown: The Wild One, 6:30 p.m., On the Waterfront 9:30 p.m., Sayonara, 11:30 p.m., Missouri Breaks, 2 a.m..

Brando: Parts I and II will air On Saturday, May 12, at 2:15 p,m., and again on Tuesday, May 29, at 12:15 a.m..

Late in the evening of the 4/24 Santa Monica City Council meeting, Council member Kevin McKeown asked his colleagues to endorse the peace education activities of Veterans for Peace Los Angeles, the organizers of the Arlington West memorial at Santa Monica Pier and an upcoming “Americans for Peace 2007” West Coast tour.

Council member Bobby Shriver had been called out of town earlier in the week and Council member Herb Katz had left the meeting. Mayor Bloom said he did not think it appropriate that the City take a stand on non-local issues. Council member Pam O’Connor agreed with him. Members Bob Holbrook and Ken Genser voted with McKeown, but the motion failed as it did not have the requisite four votes.

Bloom and O’Connor should be ashamed of themselves.

It took about a minute for the Council to approve the commencement of phase II of an agreement with Morley Construction Company for the Big Blue Bus maintenance building and site improvements and the allocation of $63,482,236, including contingencies, for the work.

When it was done, Mayor Richard Bloom expressed awe and pleasure at how quickly and easily he and his colleagues spent over $62 million. Shock and disgust were expressed here at the Dispatch at the idiocy of spending an estimated total of $80 million on a “new” bus yard in downtown Santa Monica. The bus yard should have been moved to the Santa Monica Airport and equipped with a park-and-ride lot, which would not only materially reduce traffic in downtown Santa Monica, but would make the two square blocks now occupied by the bus yards available for housing and/or parking and/or a park – all of which are in short supply in the downtown area.

Three-Tiered Celebration at Virginia Avenue Park

Virginia Avenue Park will be the site of three events on Sunday, May 7 from 1-6 p.m. -- a Cinco de Mayo Fiesta, a vintage car show and an exhibit entitled “Artists at Work.”

Mariachi Voz de America, Los Pochos (música norteña), Ballet Folklorico, Danza de la Pluma (Oaxacan indigenous dance) and Salsa musicians are scheduled to perform.

Performance artist Maria Elena Gaitan will emcee a dance contest during the afternoon. There will be activities for children, and Mexican food including carne asada, tamales and fresh fruit juices by Mama’s Hot Tamales and Cha Cha Chicken will be served.

“The Pico Passport” – Pico Boulevard’s merchant association’s discount program -- is staging the vintage car show, which will include a vintage fire truck and a 1913 Morgan three-wheel Racer. Pico neighborhood business owners, area residents and City of Santa Monica employees will provide the estimated 50 vehicles. Trophies will be awarded to the top cars.

The Pico Passport has also organized the Artists at Work exhibit to celebrate the work of painters, photographers and sculptors from Pico Boulevard.

Virginia Avenue Park is located on the northwest corner of Pico and Cloverfield. Free parking will be available in Santa Monica College’s "Structure C," at Pico and 17th Street.

The City’s Human Services Manager Julie Rusk opened the April 24 Santa Monica City Council meeting with a progress report on programs that aid homeless people.

Chronic Homeless Program staff members have met with 113 people who are mentally ill or addicted to drugs or alcohol, and have placed 39 of them in permanent housing, and 18 in temporary housing. The average age of program participants is 66.

The SEOP – CLARE staff has made 400 contacts in the City jail, 103 of which resulted in people being connected with services.

Project Homecoming has reunited 23 individuals with friends and family at an average cost of $144.

Homeless Community Court has dealt with 26 cases in three sessions.

Homelessness 101, a new program, will provide training to City staff to provide customer service to homeless individuals.

A new television call-in show, “It’s Your Call: Homelessness in Our Community,” will air live on CityTV on Wednesdays (April 25-June 13) from noon to 1 p.m.

Opinion

Some of the region’s leading wishful thinkers work in Santa Monica City Hall.

It’s quite touching actually – this continuing effort to put a happy face on everything.
For instance, as any sentient being knows, our town has been overtaken by gridlock, but the City’s wishful thinkers have dubbed the revision of the circulation element of the General Plan “Motion by the Ocean.”

“No Motion by the Ocean,” or "Motionless by the Ocean,” would be truer, and might inspire City planners to actually devise some effective means of eliminating gridlock, but the truth, in this instance and so many others, is depressing.

The City of Santa Monica’s 2006-07 allocation to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District of $7,1 million, has yet to be approved by the City Council. Now, according to an information item from Barbara Stinchfield, Community and Cultural Services Department Director, to the Mayor and the City Council, the District’s Arts Foundation has asked
the City to make good on a $250,000 promise it made in 20001.

The foundation plans to spend the money on a three-year marketing and fundraising campaign to increase the For the Arts endowment.

In December 2000, the City Council awarded the foundation a $200.000 grant in support of the development of the endowment. In February, 2001, the Council earmarked an additional $500,000 to be awarded to the foundation when it reached its $5,000,000 goal. At the same time, it stipulated that $250,000 could be made available earlier, at the discretion of staff.

To date, the For the Arts campaign has raised just under $2,000,000 for the endowment, which supports a range of music, art, dance and drama instruction and programs in the District.

According to Stinchfield, “Staff believes that this represents sufficient progress to release $250,000,[and]…has met with representatives of the foundation to discuss their objective of increasing the endowment to $5,000,000 over the next few years, as well as the proposed use of the $250,000 in City funds. The funds will be used primarily for the development of new branding and marketing materials, a major donor solicitation and cultivation plan and the establishment of an annual arts awards program. Funds will be released over the next three years, pending the satisfactory completion of specific deliverables, and annual progress reports.”

Jarret Emmery, 11th Grade
Santa Monica High School

Like many other high school juniors, I went to the East Coast over spring break to look at colleges.

In the course of my 14-day trip, I looked at 11 colleges. Here is what I thought of each one. They’re listed in the order that I saw them. I’ve used a pen-name so that when college admissions officers Google my name, they won’t find me talking trash about their schools.

* Tufts—Somerville, Massachusetts (near Boston): I liked that international relations is the most popular major, because that’s one of my major interests. I also liked that freshmen get unlimited food, and that the food is consistently ranked among the top 10 in the country (according to my tour guide). Newsweek named Tufts the best school for studying abroad, which is another plus. However, Tufts has 10 required core classes, which seems like a lot. Also, Meredith Vieira went there. Nothing against her, but “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” totally went downhill once she started hosting it. Now that I mention it, I should find out where Regis went to college……

* Harvard—Cambridge, Massachusetts (across the river from Boston): Harvard is Harvard. With the second biggest endowment of anything in America (behind only the US government), Harvard jumped out at me. I liked that professors are required to set aside two hours each day to talk to students. I also like that Harvard’s esteemed alumni include JFK, John Adams and Julius “The J-Man” Caesar (I made that last one up). Harvard was probably my favorite of all the schools that I visited.

* Boston University—Boston, Massachusetts: Boston U is one large school. It has prestigious alumni such as Martin Luther King Jr., but its academics could be better. The US News and World Report ranked it 57th in the nation, considerably lower most of the other schools I visited. Of course, that’s just one publication’s opinion.

* Amherst—Amherst, Massachusetts: I wasn’t feeling this school. It was too small, and it didn’t seem very friendly. The tour guide didn’t really seem to be feeling it either. She kept muttering “help me!” under her breath, and halfway through the tour she tried to run away. I didn’t get a very warm feeling from this school.

* Brown—Providence, Rhode Island: Brown has no core curriculum, meaning that you can take whatever classes you want. The people there were very friendly, and Providence seems to be a nice city. I only got mugged twice during the tour, but the robbers were kind of funky hippie types, so it was all good.

* Yale—New Haven, Connecticut: I got a bad vibe from this school. I got the feeling that everyone was white and boring. This may have been due to the fact that everyone was, in fact, white and boring.

* Columbia—New York, New York: If you want to go to school in New York City, this is the place. I like the school, but I’m not sure if I want to go to school in New York. The only thing I didn’t like is the core curriculum, which requires 6 classes ranging from Freshman Introductory English to Science Seminar to Bludgeoning: Famed Irish Masters in the Art of Clubbing

* Georgetown—Washington, DC: I like the curriculum that Georgetown offers, but it’s right near Washington Reagan Airport and noisy planes fly over the campus about every two minutes. At very low altitudes. Like I-can-tell-that-the-kid-in-seat-17A-is-picking-his-nose low.

* George Washington—Washington, DC: I was very disappointed when I learned, 45 minutes into the campus tour, that George Washington himself no longer plays an active role in the administration. This kind of threw a damper on the rest of the tour. Even without that, I would put George Washington (the University) near the bottom of my list of schools.

* Swarthmore—Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia): Swarthmore had a very beautiful campus, but it was a little too small for my liking. But the student body said that he enjoys the school a lot, so I wouldn’t rule out Swarthmore as a choice.

* University of Pennsylvania —Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: this school, in the heart of Philadelphia, was very different than Swarthmore. It has a huge student population, but it still feels pretty intimate. The only thing I didn’t like was the lack of on-campus housing. Only 60% of students live on campus. 39% live off campus, and 1%, a.k.a. Sophomore Joey Almond, live “wherever the wind takes me, man.”

If things go according to the agenda at next Tuesday’s City Council meeting, downtown traffic may actually begin to move again in the fall of 2008.

City staff is scheduled to recommend that the Council authorize City Manager Lamont Ewell to award contracts for “The Downtown Advanced Traffic Management System Communication and Traffic Signal Modification Project”
(ATMS).

The Council authorized the purchase of the system from Siemens Energy and Automation in September, 2004.

The five-phase plan to install the system citywide was initially presented to the Council in June, 2006. Phase 1, which focused on Fourth Street, has been completed. Phase 2, which covers downtown Santa Monica and Lincoln Boulevard from downtown to the southern City limit, will presumably go forward Tuesday night, and be completed by the fall of 2008. Phase 3 will tie Wilshire, Santa Monica and Pico Boulevards, aka “priority transit corridors,” in. Phase 4 will cover most of the rest of Santa Monica, and a few outlying areas will be covered in Phase 5.

The problems generated by Santa Monica’s development surge have extended beyond our borders and alienated virtually all of our neighbors.

Venice residents frequently deplore Santa Monica’s “commercialism.” Our traffic regularly chokes otherwise serene streets in Santa Monica Canyon. And Mar Vista residents have been bothered for years by the noise and pollution at our airport.

Our City Hall gang and its ubiquitous consultants didn’t mean to tie all the streets in the area in knots or, in concert with the FAA, make Santa Monica airport ground zero for private jets. They simply set out to fatten City Hall coffers. The negative impacts were inadvertent.

But there’s nothing inadvertent about the City of Santa Monica’s recent decree that the dog run at our new Airport Park is off-limits to non-resident canines.

Santa Monica has shared its airport noise, air pollution and traffic with Mar Vista residents for years. To refuse to share its new dog run, though many Mar Vista residents live closer to it than most Santa Monica residents, is thoughtless, arrogant and wrong.

And unacceptable.

A shortage of Council members Tuesday night required a radical downsizing of the agenda at the last minute, and what didn’t happen was at least as significant as what did happen.

Three of the seven members were absent. Bob Holbrook was reportedly away on vacation, Pam O’Connor was said to be off on MTA board business and Herb Katz was in the hospital.

Further complicating matters, members Ken Genser and Kevin McKeown each had to recuse himself from voting on a prominent item on the agenda. The only Council members who were present and unencumbered were Mayor Richard Bloom and Council member Bobby Shriver, and as at least four votes are needed to pass or reject any measure, much of the agenda had to be continued into the indefinite future.

Dutton’s Bookstore in Brentwood is a treasure – not simply a Westside treasure or a Los Angeles treasure but a national treasure. It is invaluable, indispensable, irreplaceable, one of a handful of truly great independent bookstores in America.

From the day Doug Dutton opened the store 20-some years ago, it became an integral part of my life and the lives of innumerable other people. Over the years, I have spent more hours in Dutton’s than I can count – looking at the new books, exploring the shelves, making miraculous discoveries, talking with, sometimes debating, the very bright clerks, hearing writers read.

The Barry building, a perfect example of mid-century California modern architecture, and Dutton’s seemed made for each other from the start. The graceful two-story, U-shaped structure wraps around a spacious courtyard, in which virtually every writer of note has appeared at one time or another to read and/or sign books. Riding lightly on its site, the building with its tropical landscaping is one of the few on that stretch of San Vicente that complements rather than demeans it.

The state of California’s requirement that cities revise elements in their General Plan every 20 years gives residents an opportunity to reset their municipal compasses in order to preserve their towns’ character and integrity.

As the 2005 Santa Monica revision got underway, Planning and Community Development Director Suzanne Frick said it was our Constitution as it would determine Santa Monica’s destiny for a generation.

The timing was perfect, as, in the view of an increasing number of residents, City Hall’s aggressive economic development policies was turning this 137-year old beach town – small-scale, low-key, easy-going, butifully located on the storied Southern California coast – into a frazzled boom town that was simultaneously generating lots of revenue for City Hall and lots of problems for residents.

It’s called “The Village,” but it isn’t a village at all. The misnomer is just part of City Hall’s continuing effort to put small town faces on its big city projects.

In fact, “The Village” is 364 apartments in three large buildings that will be clustered around the westerly end of RAND’s behemoth ellipse in the Civic Center. About half of the apartments will be “affordable” rental units, and the other half will be “luxury condominiums.”

“The Village” is being be developed for the City by the Related Companies of California, which is also developing the multi-billion dollar Grand Avenue project in downtown Los Angeles. Related asked for and won a $40 million tax break on that project before the shovels hit the dirt. “The Village” is being designed by three local architectural firms – Pugh+ Scarpa, Koning Eizenberg and Moore, Ruble, Yudell.

As Gwynne Pugh and Hank Koning are both members of the City’s Planning Commission, they will presumably recuse themselves from any Commission review of the project.

An exchange from James L. Brooks’ brilliant 1987 film, Broadcast News, is more relevant today than it was when it was made 20 years ago.

The characters:
Aaron (played by Albert Brooks) is a first-rate, but expendable TV newsman. Tom (played by William Hurt), whom Aaron refers to, has virtually no experience as a newsman, but is already a network news star simply because he’s good-looking and charming. Both men are interested in Jane (played by Holly Hunter), a talented, driven news producer.

The exchange:
Aaron...I believe that Tom, while a very
nice guy, is the devil.

Jane…You’re crazy….

Aaron: What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? No one’s going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail. Come on. What’s he gonna sound like? ( Aaron GROWLS). No. I’m semi-serious here. He will be attractive. He’ll be nice and helpful. He’ll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation, he’ll never do an evil thing. He’ll never deliberately hurt a living thing. He’ll just bit by bit lower our standards where they’re important. Just coax along flash over substance.. Just a tiny little bit And he’ll talk about all of us really being salesmen…And he’ll get all the great women.

James L. Brooks:
One of Hollywood’s most talented and prolific producer/director/writers, he was an MTM stalwart, creating and working on some of television’s classic sitcoms, and went on to produce, direct and write some of the best movies of the last two decades, including Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets and I’ll Do Anything. He is currently wrapping The Simpson Movie.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and the City of Santa Monica flags flew at half-mast today in memory of Yolanda King who collapsed and died here Tuesday night. She was 51,

According to the Associated Press, shortly after she spoke at an American Heart Association meeting, King, the oldest daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., died at the home of her brother, Dexter King, in Santa Monica late Tuesday.

She spoke last year at the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium in the new Santa Monica Main Library.

An actress who also headed a production company, King lived in Culver City. She, appeared with Whoopi Goldberg and Alex Baldwin in “Ghosts of Mississippi,” about the murder of Medger Evers, and played Rosa Parks in the 1978 miniseries ‘King.’

AP reported that the King family “did not know the cause of death, but relatives think it might have been a heart problem.”

The following headlines appeared in
The New York Times today, Wednesday, May 16, 2007:

Bush Intervened in Dispute
Over NSA Eavesdropping

Bush Pick Gets
Extra Payment
From Old Job

Bush Opens Door to Wolfowitz’s
Resigning Voluntarily

White House Picks General
To Coordinate Its War Policy

Iraq Attacks Stayed Steady
Despite Troop Increase, Data Shows

Since most major American newspapers, magazines, network television and radio news departments and 24-hour news channels have been reduced to minor cogs in major corporate empires, they’re naturally more interested in the adventures of Paris Hilton than the misadventures and misdeeds of the Bush administration.

Even when big media do what they call investigative reporting, it generally stays on the trivial side of the street.

These days, the best investigative work can be found in books and documentary films, and one of the best, most compelling and important documentaries, Eugene Jarecki’s WHY WE FIGHT, has finally made it to cable TV.

Tonight, CBS News inadvertently demonstrated how far it has fallen by following a 90th birthday tribute to Walter Cronkite, a great newsman, its longtime anchor, and, in his time, “the most trusted man in America,” with “Dr. Phil: A Primetime Special: Caged.”

And if further proof of CBS News’ decline were needed, Katie Couric, CBS Evening News’ current anchor, was among the people paying tribute to the great old newsman. The contrast between Cronkite, and Couric, whose resemblance to a Barbie doll is remarkable -- and scary, was quite simply unbearable.

As everyone knows by now, City Hall’s favorite word is “vibrant.” Virtually everything it does is “vibrant” or will be when the City is done with it.

But what does it mean?

It means “moving to and fro rapidly; vibrating; vibrating so as to produce sound, as a string; sounds characterized by perceptible vibration; resonant; resounding.”

And ”pulsating with vigor and energy vigorous; energetic; vital; exciting; stimulating; lively.”

And “Phonetics. made with tonal vibration of the vocal cords; voiced.”

And “characterized by rapid, rhythmic movement back and forth or to and fro; vibrating.”

And “vigorous and animated; ‘a vibrant group that challenged the system;’ ‘charming and vivacious hostess;’ ‘a vivacious folk dance.’”

Origin: c.1550, "agitated," from L. vibrantem (nom. vibrans) "swaying," prp. of vibrare "move to and fro" (see vibrate). Meaning "vigorous, full of life" is first recorded 1860.

But what does the City mean?

Downtown Santa Monica and what we call the Civic Center were divided by an arroyo until 1922, when the Main Street bridge was built across said arroyo.

The gorgeous Streamline Moderne City Hall was built in 1938. About the same time, the Evening Outlook and the Santa Monica Realty Board sponsored a Civic Center design competition. There were many entries, but nothing came of it.

In 1951, the City sold eight-plus acres across Main Street from City Hall to the RAND Corporation for $250,000. Using the land as collateral, RAND promptly borrowed $1.4 million from a San Francisco bank and built the first of its two buildings.

In 1956, the City built the Civic Auditorium on the southern end of the Civic Center. Designed by Welton Beckett, the fanciful ‘50s structure was the site of the Academy Awards ceremonies for a number of years, as well as some memorable rock concerts. The L.A. County courthouse was also built in 1956. Next to City Hall, it exemplified another sort of ‘50s modernist architecture.

NBC-TV has trailed the other three networks in the ratings for a while because it runs really bad shows – like “Deal or No Deal” – and cancels really good shows – like “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”

NBC has taken up residence in the cellar, because Brandon Tartikoff and Grant Tinker, the supreme showmen who once ran the network, have been succeeded by a series of gamesmen, who behave as if they know everything, but apparently don’t know that a TV network is only as good as the people who make its programs.

To the continuing chagrin of many residents, City Hall insists on calling Santa Monica “Art City,” even as fewer and fewer artists can afford to live and work here.

But now that the City’s ”Creative Capital” report has concluded that the arts are a major economic asset, it has finally added live/work artists’ studios at reasonable prices to its “To Do” list.

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times last week, Venice is wrestling with the same problem.

Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha, Laddie John Dill, Peter Alexander, Robert Graham, Ed Moses, Charles Arnoldi and actor-photographer Dennis Hopper all arrived in Venice decades ago when it was an outlaw of a place and they were young and unknown. Today, they are all top dogs in the
art world, and Venice has become chic and, as the Times reported, the artists want to end “the artistic cleansing” of Venice, and create what Dill called "a self-sustaining center for the arts for the next 100 years," where young and emerging artists can afford to live and work.

As City Hall and residents continue to revise the land use element of the General Plan, which will include decisions about the best uses of the last and only under-developed area in Santa Monica, the Light Manufacturing and Studio District (LMSD), we hope they recognize and respond to what is clearly a regional, not a local crisis -- the plight of our artists – in a smart, comprehensive and generous way.

A community that has no room for artists is not a community at all.

City Hall’s seemingly endless drive to perfect downtown Santa Monica, which, by its lights, means turning it into a money mill, went off the rails years ago.

For generations, all downtown streets were more or less equal. But, since 1965, when the City turned Third Street between Wilshire Boulevard and Broadway into a pedestrian mall, they’ve been unbalanced.

The mall was a pleasant addition, It was lined with interesting, small, locally owned shops, including quite a number of independent bookstores. The only chain stores were Woolworth’s and J.C. Penney’s.

But, in the early 1970s, in search of more bling and bang, the City declared the two blocks at the southern end of the mall “blighted,” bought up all the land and sought a developer to build an enclosed shopping center on the site. Many residents objected, but City Hall prevailed.

Paul Newman, 82, announced yesterday that he wouldn’t make any more films. And the world seemed a little paler and flatter.

He was an extraordinary actor – consistently brilliant, always compelling – who should have won a shelf of Oscars, but was often and inexplicably overlooked by the Academy, perhaps because he made it look so easy.

Newman was heard but not seen in his last three films, all of which were animated features. His final on-screen appearance was in HBO Films’ “Empire Falls,” in 2005, in which he played an old rogue – as irresistible as he was irresponsible.

In the course of his long career, he probably played as many so-called bad guys and/or anti-heroes, as good buys, and he inevitably inclined towards rogues.

The most notable of his last round of films was “Twilight,” in which he played an exhausted private detective. It was a dead-on perfect performance.

And, in real life, he was, and is, a dead-on perfect man.

In addition to his work on stage, he appeared in 78 films, directed a number of them, drove race cars for a while, and his non-profit line of foods raised over $200 million for a variety of worthy causes.

Bravo, Mr. Newman.

–

The Los Angeles Times is rapidly becoming better known for its mistakes than for its good works, perhaps because there have been so many mistakes, and they have been so dumb.

Its latest and one of its most dazzling missteps is its abrupt and rude dismissal of longtime columnist Al Martinez.

Unlike many of the LAT honchos,Martinez knows the territory and understands it, and that knowledge and insight are implicit in everything he writes. As important, he has a unique perspective that made his columns “must" reading for countless Times readers.

And so the Times has just become a little thinner and less interesting. Again.

Martinez will survive, but, given its rapidly accumulating missteps, we’re not sure the Times will.

On this overwhelmingly sad Memorial Day, we mourn the 3,455 American troops who have been killed and the more than 25,000 troops who have been wounded in the Iraqi war, along with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens who have died in the inferno their nation has become.

This very unmerry month of May is already the deadliest month in two and a half years, with 101 troops dead now and four days to go.

The Iraqi war has gone on longer than World War II, and we still don’t know why we’re there.

EDITORIAL

At last Thursday night’s Santa Monica City Council meeting (see Council Delays SMMUSD Allocation), Council members spent several hours debating whether it’s within the Council’s purview to ask the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education to rescind the gag orders that have been imposed on parents of children with special needs who have made agreements with the District separate from Federally-protected Individualized Education Plans.

Mayor Pro Tem Herb Katz and Council member Bobby Shriver believe that the gag orders should be rescinded before the Council approves the full $7.2 million allocation that City staff has recommended be paid to the District.

Other Council members disagreed, apparently siding with Ken Genser’s assertion that the Council has neither the authority nor the right to set or change District policy.

We agree with Katz and Shriver.

Everything suggested that last Thursday night’s Santa Monica City Council meeting would be relatively short and simple.

It was the final of three fiscal year 2007-2008 budget study sessions, and most of the heavy lifting had been taken care of at the Tuesday and Wednesday night sessions.

Priorities had been set. All of the City department reports on past projects and plans for the coming year had been made by staff and amended, in some cases, by Council members.

The controversy over the confidentiality agreement that the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s chief financial officer, Winston Braham, had signed on resigning seemed to have subsided.

The more Environmental Impact Reports we read, the more convinced we are that the people who write them live in some sort of rose-colored bubble.

Whoever wrote the draft EIR on the California Incline cited in the preceding article cannot have spent any time here or he/she/they could not have stated so emphatically and cheerfully that shutting down the California Incline for 10 months (real time = 14 to 18 months) would cause only minor traffic disruptions.

According to these descendants of Dr. Pangloss, City Hall will develop a “traffic plan,” and traffic will be “monitored,” and Lincoln and Ocean Street will be clearly designated detours, and northbound drivers will be advised to leave the 10 Freeway at Lincoln or Fourth…

AND it will be a bloody nightmare! For Santa Monica and Santa Monica Canyon residents and any unfortunate driver who finds himself in this latest traffic snarl.

The City of Santa Monica, in cooperation with Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration, is, in its words. “proposing to reconstruct the structurally deficient California Incline to meet current seismic standards.”

The City has scheduled a community workshop on ednesday, June 20, to explain its plans, discuss the recently completed draft Environmental Impact Report/ Environmental Assessment, and hear from residents.

The incline descends from the intersection of Ocean and California Avenues at the top of the Palisades Bluffs to Pacific Coast Highway (State Route 1 (SR-1).

The City wants to demolish the existing roadway and construct a new one at the same location.

The new incline – one northbound lane and two southbound lanes -- would be about 750 feet long and, again, in the City’s words, “consist of a reinforced concrete slab structure with spans on the order of 44 feet. Overall width of the new incline would be 51 feet 8 inches, an increase of 5 feet 8 inches over the existing structure. The three 12-foot-wide vehicular lanes would be maintained; the proposed improvements would be designed to accommodate both pedestrians and bicyclists. Construction would also require the reconstruction of the upper and lower approaches to the California Incline at Ocean Avenue and SR-1, respectively.