PASEO DEL MAR DISASTER - Last Sunday, the earth moved. To be more precise, an expanse of cliff broke off, a slab almost 600 feet long and encompassing an area of land as big as an aircraft carrier's flight deck.
It began at what used to be the edge of the cliff, 120 feet above the surf, and extended horizontally well inland, past the coastal highway known as Paseo del Mar. In all, it took down tens of thousands of tons of material, and left a brand new, sheer vertical scarp. Some pieces of the once-upon-a-time road can be seen hanging at an angle from the side of the rupture.
Along the adjacent plateau, cracks running to the edge foretell additional losses at some as yet uncertain time.
The sheer magnitude of this land slide could not have been predicted when the first small bumps and nooks in the roadway became apparent last spring. Motorists and bicycle riders commented on a depression in the pavement, as if it were just the latest in a long series of potholes.
The area in question did not happen to have homes or other inhabited structures on it. It was a coastal ledge that was once farmed by Japanese immigrants and later was part of a Cold War Nike Missile site. The extended area including the break zone has, in recent years, been converted into the White Point Nature Preserve, intended to be a reserve for remaining coastal chaparral in an area of otherwise unrestrained real estate development.
What we don't know is whether and how far the breakage will extend, and this has local homeowners concerned. Will the cliff face continue to peel away on one side or the other? If so, it could ultimately take down homes. The probability is that this isn't going to happen in the next several years, or maybe even in the next several lifetimes, but at this moment, the experts say that we just don't know.
It is in this context that our neighborhood council system became engaged.
Let's imagine this incident happening a dozen years ago, before the neighborhood councils existed. Would the community have come together to discuss the matter? Undoubtedly. Would elected officials join them? Obviously.
But in those days, such organizational efforts had to develop by themselves on an ad hoc basis. Whatever official took the lead, he or she would have to call a meeting, find a location, set a time, and then hope that the press or television got the word out. Sometimes things worked, and sometimes they didn't. Even when things did work, there was always a chance that competing interests, whether political or otherwise, would gripe about the fact that somebody tried to take charge. Turf wars were the predictable outcome.
In the immediate pre-slide situation, we had the expected organizational efforts and expressions of concern by local residential organizations. One group did a fairly good job of organizing and holding a meeting at a local coffee shop. The problem with this meeting, as with so many other such ad hoc efforts, is that many of us (including yours truly) did not know that it was going to happen.
Meanwhile, different city agencies and officials did their best to provide information, but it was a little scattergun.
The public were stuck with dealing with diverse sources doling out vague warnings. The city told us that the area was extremely dangerous, if not exactly why. Some of the locals believed it. Others didn't.
It became evident that the city had a well organized emergency operation going on, including engineers, electricians, and a police presence.
What the city government didn't seem to think about was the need for having a public presence among the city officials and agencies. That's a critical issue and is the subject of this piece.
In a situation such as we now face, there are going to be competing interests. For example, local homeowners not only are asking how this event happened, they seem to be asking if there is something or someone to blame.
They have been asking pointedly if there was some "trigger" that set off the slide, such as a water leak or some sort of excavation. The City Attorney objects to this line of inquiry, at least for the moment, because he sees himself potentially having to defend the city from liability claims.
Meanwhile, there are the rest of us, who miss having a scenic cliff road with a stunning view of the Catalina Channel. We understand that any attempt to rebuild the road would require it to be sited inland or up the surrounding hills -- in short, through an area that we have come to accept as the nature preserve. The coming arguments between those who would replace the scenic drive and those who would preserve the land are predictable.
Who is going to broker these sorts of conflicts and come up with a legitimate and accurate report on what public opinion actually is?
We think we have an answer. It was ordained by amendment to the City Charter in the election of 1999 when the neighborhood council system was brought into existence. Among other responsibilities, neighborhood councils function as the official voice of the public in each neighborhood council district.
On Monday, November 21, the evening after the big slide, the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council held a meeting. Present were two members of the state Assembly, the City Attorney, representatives of the mayor and of state senator Rod Wright. There were engineers from city agencies and a geologist who had been hired that same morning.
Under emergency circumstances, the neighborhood council provided the one place where all these people could come together to answer the public's questions, report on what had been done, and explain what was going to be done.
In other words, the neighborhood council has now become the official public meeting venue. It is akin to the public square or town hall of an earlier day. In a city the size of Los Angeles, we need to have a local organization available in the event of any such emergency or in the event of social turmoil.
The next morning after our neighborhood council meeting, the mayor and numerous dignitaries gathered for a press conference at the site of the slide. We heard serious discussions about how decisions and representation would be determined during the interval prior to our having an elected City Councilman. What we appreciated was that those in charge of the whole system came down to our home turf to visit, and actually held discussions with people from the local area.
There has been a lot of talk recently about friction between the city government and its neighborhood councils. This week alone, we will once again confront questions about whether we will be allowed to run our own elections and deal with our own grievances. We've been working hard at the citywide level to smooth these little controversies.
But during times when public safety is truly at risk, whether it be a train derailment or a massive landslide, the neighborhood councils have become the go-to people to organize the public and then to introduce them to their elected officials.
(Bob Gelfand is vice chair of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition and was a founder of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council in December, 2001. He can be reached at [email protected]) -cw
Tags: Paseo del Mar, Neighborhood Councils, Los Angeles, natural disasters, public safety, Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council, San Pedro
CityWatch
Vol 9 Issue 95
Pub: Nov 29, 2011