‘Winter Wonderland’ Project Approved

At the first meeting of the City Council after the Nov. 3 election, the panel approved a “Winter Wonderland” project for the Civic Arts Plaza.

The Tuesday night meeting represented the final session for councilwomen Elois Zeanah, who is retiring, and Judy Lazar, who lost in a narrow vote to Dan Del Campo.

Zeanah and Linda Parks, who both joined the council eight years ago, generally stood as political adversaries during their two terms on the council.

The panel endorsed the Winter Wonderland program at the Civic Arts Plaza, sponsored by the center’s Alliance for the Arts. The event will run through the holiday season and is expected to include music and an ice-skating rink.

In other actions, the council:

* Allocated more than $8.7 million in additional funding for the city’s Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant and to a sewer line that ruptured in February and spilled 86 million gallons of raw sewage into the Arroyo Conejo.

The $75-million sewer-plant upgrade received $53,000 for engineering services and $2.6 million in construction funds for parts of the first phase of the upgrade. The council also allocated more than $6 million to the reconstruction and upgrade of two aging sewer lines.

* Allocated $22,000 from the Housing Bond Fund for additional architectural and civil engineering consultation for a city child-care project.

* Approved several committee appointments, including the reappointment of Colleen Briner-Schmidt to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Technical Advisory Committee, and the appointments of Al Adam, George Jones, David Krehbiel, Jeanne Stapp and Chuck Young as arts patrons on the city’s Alliance for the Arts Board of Governors.