As they do every March, Oaks residents met in the upper cafeteria of Immaculate Heart High School to review the news and events of the past year in the Oaks.  Here are a few highlights of the meeting.

Beginning with the most important stuff first… Little Dom’s (newly opened on Hillhurst) provided a light dinner of fried rice balls (with a heart of creamy burrata cheese) and grilled artichokes.  Yum.

After folks had some food to stoke their furnaces, our new President, Bob Young, opened the meeting with words of thanks to immediate past president Gerry Hans for three years of extraordinary dedication to The Oaks and great results in both in advocating for our neighborhood with the City and in preserving the character of The Oaks for the future.  Then Bob gave a brief report on the association’s activities in 2007, which included working for the enactment of the Interim Control Ordinance that will stop “mansionization.”  Bob was able to report that the City Attorney’s Office had finally signed off on the ordinance and that he is hopeful it will go to the city council soon.

When Bob finished his report, he turned the floor over to Roy Pyros, the DWP superintendent in charge of The Oaks power upgrade for a report on the progress of the work.  Roy explained that the upgrade is occurring in three phases.  The first phase, which involved upgrading the overhead lines on Canyon Drive, is now complete.  The second phase upgraded the underground lines in the southeast portion of the Oaks, and this phase also is finished.  The final phase will upgrade the underground service in the upper parts of the Oaks (roughly Hill Oak, Holly Oak, Verde Oak, etc.).  DWP’s contractor is just beginning work on this phase, and the Department now estimates that work will be completed by the end of the year.  Unfortunately, this represents a delay from an earlier estimate that the work would be completed in the summer.

Bob next invited to the podium Jullian Harris-Calvin, field deputy for the Oaks from Council District 4 (CD4).  Jullian, standing in for Tom LaBonge who had been called away to Washington, DC, summarized Tom’s current priorities including re-greening Griffith Park after the fire; the DWP upgrade; improving regional transit, and in particular, making it more accessible; the Interim Control Ordinance; emergency preparedness; and NoHo development.  She also specifically mentioned that Tom is working hard to prevent the threatened development at Cahuenga Peak.  Jullian fielded a number of questions regarding the poor conditions of Oaks neighborhood streets.  She reported that each council district gets to designate only six miles of roads for repaving each year.  Given that limited resource, every time CD4 lists a bit of road for repaving, some other bit of road gets moved off the list.  She also reported that the City no longer is repaving with concrete because of its cost.  Thus, all repaving is with asphalt.   She noted, however, that it was relatively easy to arrange for curb cuts at intersections to make them accessible for people with mobility disabilities.  Jullian also noted several upcoming events including a spring hike around March 20, the American Cancer Society Relay for Life May 17 and 18 and a summer hike on June 20.  Jullian is very accessible and responsive; her telephone number and email address can be found at Oakshome.org.  Doug Memsman from CD4 gave a brief presentation on land use issues including the Interim Control Ordinance and what is happening to those who illegally cut down historic oak trees.  The developer who cut down trees on Live Oak East is facing serious penalties, and the City Attorney is looking into a similar situation at a development on Lorae Place.

Matthew Jaffe and Tom Gamache, the authors of The Santa Monica Mountains:  Range on the Edge, gave the evening’s main presentation.  They began with a video of some of Tom’s photos from the book and then each spoke briefly.  It’s not possible here to give a really accurate sense of the book or their presentation.  So, instead, here are a couple of tidbits.  First, in case you didn’t know, The Oaks and Griffith Park are part of  the Santa Monica Mountains.  The range extends roughly from the Los Angeles River near Elysian Park on the east to the Oxnard plain on the west.  The northern boundary is Ventura Boulevard, and the southern boundary is Santa Monica Boulevard.  And once, the Channel Islands were an extension of the range.  The Santa Monica Range is old, having been uplifted, tilted and worn down on a number of occasions over the millennia.  While Range on the Edge is widely available at many booksellers, Matthew and Tom were selling and signing volumes at the meeting.

Our thanks to our guest speakers for making the 2008 Annual Meeting an enjoyable evening of Oaks ancient history and current events.  We’ll  do it again about the same time next year and we hope you’ll join us.