Lawndale to Consider Using Volunteers to Aid Landscaping Project

At the suggestion of a former Planning Commission chairman, the Lawndale City Council next week will consider a plan to use volunteer workers to help landscape a portion of the Hawthorne Boulevard median.

Gary McDonald, who resigned from the commission in June to run for mayor next April, suggested during a City Council meeting last month that the city use volunteers to remove the cement on top of the median along Hawthorne Boulevard at the intersection of Marine Avenue. The cement would be replaced with grass.

“It would be expensive for the city not only in dollars but in time” if the city were to hire an outside firm to do the work, McDonald told the council.

Council members said they generally agreed with the suggestion but delayed final approval for two weeks to give city staff time to study whether the city’s insurance policy covers volunteer workers.

Councimen Harold E. Hofmann, Dan McKenzie and Larry Rudolph said they supported the idea and voted to decide the issue immediately by placing it on the agenda as an emergency item.

However, city law requires the approval of four of the five council members to add an emergency item to the agenda. Mayor Sarann Kruse and Councilwoman Carol Norman voted against placing the proposal on the agenda, saying they would like the city attorney to have more time to study the plan.

“I have no objection to volunteers doing things in the city but I’d like the city attorney at least to give the council information on what we can do and what we can’t do and his recommendations about the way to do it,” Kruse said.

In an interview Friday, City Manager Jim Arnold said he had studied the city’s insurance policy and found that volunteers who work under the supervision of city staff members are covered.

The median along Hawthorne Boulevard has been the focus of much study and debate for several years. In 1970, the city installed Astroturf on the median, but city officials became disillusioned with the phony grass when it became faded and began to trap bits of trash. Last fall, city officials decided to remove the plastic grass, leaving bare cement covered with patches of green Astroturf adhesive.

Improve the Median

Since then, city officials said they have had several discussions about ways to improve the median all along Hawthorne.

The image portrayed by the boulevard concerns officials in Lawndale because it is a major South Bay commuter route and a busy thoroughfare for local traffic, city officials said. It is used by about 50,000 cars a day, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Property along Hawthorne represents more than half of the commercial acreage in Lawndale and is a major source of sales tax revenues, city officials said.

In August, the council voted to pay $15,000 to landscape the median at the intersection with Marine Avenue. But Arnold said the money will only pay for new grass and a sprinkler system and will not be enough to pay for the cost of removing the cement and buying new top soil.

In an interview Friday, McDonald said the project would take six volunteers, including Councilmen Hofmann and Rudolph, two days to tear out the 16,200 square feet of cement from the median.

Donate Equipment

He said a private developer has already donated 200 cubic yards of top soil. Hofmann, who runs a sewage contract company, would donate the equipment for the project.

McDonald estimated that the city will save $42,000 by using volunteers and donated soil.

Rudolph said in an interview that he hopes the project will be an example for future improvement projects within the city.

“When we finish I expect we will have a beautiful median,” Rudolph said.