Silver Lake residents at odds over the ‘meadows’
Let’s begin by listing some things that would be awful to live near:
* A reindeer-processing facility.
* A stale beer repository.
* A maximum-security prison for the dreadfully violent.
* An anaconda breeder.
* A nail-polish-remover factory.
* A park.
Wait. Who doesn’t want to live near a nice, grassy, shady park next to a lake?
Some residents in Silver Lake, it seems.
At issue is the so-called meadows, an approximately six-acre plot of grass and trees along the eastern edge of Silver Lake Reservoir.
The meadows has for decades sat behind a fence because the reservoir supplies drinking water, and the city doesn’t want people near it.
That’s about to change.
The city is building a new underground tank to hold the drinking water -- meaning it’s possible that the reservoir one day could be opened to public use.
In the meantime, some Silver Lake residents want the fence blocking the meadows to be pushed back so that residents can for now enjoy the big grassy lawn.
But not so fast. Some other Silver Lake residents are trying to block such a move.
And the arguments for and against?
This column first called pro-park resident Andrew Sears, president of the Committee to Save Silver Lake’s Reservoirs.
Sears delivered the predictable open-space arguments: Parks are nice places, and the city is famously short of them.
“The city has been trying to look to the future and see how to make it a more livable place, and this is definitely one of those opportunities,” Sears said.
Then this column called Brian Wakil, who lives about a block from the reservoir.
Among Wakil’s issues: There’s no parking for the new park; habitat for wildlife such as coyotes, herons and rabbits might be affected; and opening the area would diminish it as a historic cultural monument.
“The more people that come into a neighborhood, the greater the potential for crime,” Wakil said.
“The more people that come in, the greater chances of something happening. I really feel like the money would be better spent on a park somewhere else.”
Time out. Should everything be closed to people just because of the possibility something bad might happen?
Wakil said that he, too, initially thought that opening the meadows was a good idea until he gave it more thought.
With plenty of parks already in the area, he said that residents only wanted to preserve the meadows in their present, untouched form.
“The entire city might look back 50 or 100 years from now and say, ‘Thank God there was a group of people who were concerned enough to stop an intrusion into a cultural monument,’ ” he said, adding, “How’s that for a quote?”
Just perfect.
The meadows were opened a couple of Saturdays ago for a daylong event, and about 700 people showed up for a preview of what may come.
Stay tuned.
On the subject of parks, what could be done with the land on which Dodger Stadium sits -- should, say, the stadium be demolished?
Attentive readers may recall this column’s suggestion last week that perhaps it would be wise to locate Dodger Stadium downtown near mass transit, like most other big cities have done.
Super-attentive readers also may recall that suggesting Dodger Stadium be moved isn’t outlandish.
In fact, a prominent architectural landscaping and urban design firm did just that last fall.
The idea was floated as part of the competitive process to choose a firm to design the new Los Angeles State Historic Park, also known as the Cornfield.
Of the three finalists, New York-based Field Operations had the boldest proposal: Tear down Dodger Stadium and move the new ballpark -- with an adjacent parking garage -- to the Cornfield.
After the old stadium was demolished, 205 acres would be added to Elysian Park and 60 more acres developed into residential and commercial properties. Money made by developing that land would pay for the park.
“The stadium is obsolete and will change, whether it’s five years or in a decade,” Thom Mayne, a Los Angeles-based architect whose Morphosis firm was part of the team, said at a community meeting in October.
How did that go over?
It was so bold that Field Operations and Morphosis didn’t get the job. That, of course, doesn’t mean they were wrong.
Just for fun -- and because neither the city nor the Dodgers are making a push for a new stadium -- this column will try to find a new stadium site in the next few weeks.
On board to help is Eric Richardson, publisher of the excellent blogdowntown.com.
“It’s not so much moving the stadium as reclaiming all that space on the edge of the park,” Richardson said.
In the meantime, it took Councilwoman Jan Perry all of about three seconds to find a new site: “What about the Sports Arena?” she said. “The Expo Line [light rail that’s under construction] will stop right near there.”
We’ll check it out, councilwoman.
Another idea to chew on, humbly offered by this column: If the old stadium site becomes a park and housing, what about connecting it to Chinatown via an aerial tram -- like the cool one that just opened in Portland, Ore.?
And what did crack radio reporter John Rabe encounter Tuesday in Little Tokyo?
“One Parking Enforcement officer parked in front of a fire hydrant whilst chatting with a fellow enforcer, parked in a loading zone, but not loading or unloading,” Rabe wrote in an e-mail, with a photo attached.
Nice. Rabe, by the way, is the host of Offramp at noon Saturdays on KPCC-FM (89.3) and has taken a keen interest in this column’s fascination with the city’s decrepit parking meters.
Which local politician isn’t just looking for his own name when he reads the newspaper?
Assemblyman Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), who read here in February that the county was spraying down the walls of the Arroyo Seco with a combination of three herbicides. One of those is toxic to fish.
The Arroyo Seco drains to the L.A. River, which the city is trying to revitalize. So, on March 27, De Leon sent the Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner’s office -- the agency that did the spraying -- a letter asking a slew of questions.
Is the county also spraying along the L.A. River? Is there an alternative to spraying? How are the herbicides chosen? Is the public informed?
As of Friday afternoon, De Leon was still waiting for a response, 32 days after sending his letter.
In related river news, the carp in the Glendale Narrows were spawning again last week.
Jay Babcock, an Atwater Village resident, posted video on his fun new L.A. River blog, www.naturetrumps.wordpress.com.
And finally?
You may have heard the news that the Los Angeles Planning Commission has penned 14 principles that it believes will make the city look and function like a city -- instead of, say, a big parking lot interrupted by a few streets and buildings.
Well, the commission’s guidelines are now online at cityplanning.lacity.org. Check them out -- our favorite is “arrest visual blight.”
It’s a good idea. And let’s hope that the commission has a lot of handcuffs.
Next week: Turtlegate.
