Griffith Park is the largest municipal park in the United States. Bigger than Central Park? Yes, five times as big (4,107 acres for our park, 843 for that tiny parcel in New York). Tell that to your New Yorky friends. Also tell them to stop moving here and then complaining about how they can't get "New York Style" pizza. We have New York style pizza--we just call it "Greasy Pizza That's Been Sitting Under a Hot Light at the Mall."

Anyway, here's a bunch of stuff you probably didn't know.

Griffith Park is named after someone whose name sounds made up. Look this up if you want, but Griffith Park was named after a Welshman named Griffith J. Griffith. He gave the park to the city of LA after making millions in gold mining. Most people think it was named after D.W. Griffith. Oh, and if you thought it was named after Andy Griffith, make sure you're not home-schooling your kids.

The Griffith Park Tunnel is a movie star. It has appeared as the entrance to Toontown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the entrance to NORAD in WarGames.

Golf Paradise. The "I am Tiger Woods" commercial was shot at Griffith Park's Wilson golf course. Even if you are not Tiger Woods, you can play on the two 18 hole courses, the nine hole course, or the par three course made famous in the movie Swingers.

Tennis Paradise. The Vermont Canyon tennis courts are one of the rare places where you can play tennis while deer watch you. They rarely heckle, mostly because it attracts coyotes.

Cowboy Paradise. There are lots of horse trails. Some are located in the park itself. However, at the end of Beachwood there is place called the Sunset Ranch where you can rent a horse and ride to BURBANK!!!!! Most people never want to return, but if you do, the horses know the way back.

America's First Cellulite Free Zoo Animals Live There. The LA zoo opened in 1966 and was the first US zoo to prohibit patrons from feeding the animals. Disney animators visited the meerkat exhibit there when creating the super annoying meerkat character in The Lion King.

Bambi's great great grandkids live there. When Disney was filming Bambi, it acquired two fauns from a park inMaine so the animators could study their movements. These were released into Griffith Park and their descendants watch tennis and quietly heckle to this very day.

The Beverly Hillbillies Lived there. Well, for awhile at least. In the episode entitled "Robin Hood of Griffith Park." Jethro dresses as Robin Hood, and along with Elly & Bessy the chimp, moves out to Griffith Park to rob from the rich and give to the poor.

The Hollywood Sign Lives There. The Hollywood sign first appeared in 1923, as "Hollywoodland." Over the next 25 years, the letters deteriorated. So, in 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce dropped the “land” and spruced up the remaining letters. By 1978, the letters were in trouble again, so various celebrities donated $27,000 per letter for brand new letters. Hugh Hefner was one of them. As there was not a "T" or "A" available, he bought the "Y." Andy Williams bought the "W" and Alice Cooper bought the "O" for GrouchO Marx.

That wasn't a typo--I had to make the "O" big in Groucho so you'd understand.

The Observatory is a Great Place for a Knife Fight. Well, that's that James Dean thought anyway. The knife fight in Rebel Without a Cause took place at the Griffith Park Observatory and is commemorated with a plaque. I guess they also look at stars and stuff there.

Well, they do a lot more than that, as a matter of fact. But we haven't been able to take advantage of the Observatory because it's "been having some work done." Let me assure you, the results of the augmentation will be spectacular. For starters, the size of the facility will double. There will be a new theater (named after Leonard Nimoy) and they have added a little something called "The Cafe at the End of the Universe."

Would you go on a date if someone asked you to join them at the Cafe at the end of the Universe? Seems like a pretty big commitment. Anyway, check it out at: www.griffithobs.org/.

A guy named Josh Groban played at the Greek Theater. Do you know who that is? Neither do I. But I plagiarized several websites in order to write this article, and the first one to discuss the Greek Theater's "history" did so as follows: "Nestled in the picturesque treeenclosed setting of Griffith Park, this is one of LA's most historic entertainment venues! Big names that have performed in this 5700 seat theatre include Josh Groban, Sting, Elton John and many more!"

In order to get some balance, I looked up another website, one that wasn't written by Josh Groban's mom, and stole additional material in order to get some "historical" perspective: "Recent seasons have featured performances by a wide variety of artists such as The Who, Sting, Alicia Keys, Pearl Jam, Jose Cameras, Marc Anthony, Tina Turner, Elton John, Santana, The White Stripes, The Gipsy Kings, the Russian National Ballet, Paul Simon with a special guest appearance by Sir Paul McCartney, just to name a few."

So, if you're scoring at home, the author of the first article skipped over TheWho, Jose Carreras, Tina Turner, the Russian National Ballet and Paul McCartney in order to make room for JOSH GROBAN! If I succumb to this kind of Josh Groban Mania in any future articles, please kick me out of the Oaks before it spreads. He's already succeeded in having his name appear in this article five times, once in capital letters. Who knows where he'll strike next.

Check out the park yourself. You can do so virtually at on the web, or in person at 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

In the March newsletter we told you about planning by a developer for four large new homes on four small contiguous lots on a steeply sloped hill at 2245 to 2265 Live Oak Drive East (the four lots were created decades ago when the minimum lot size was smaller and were grandfathered in). Three of the homes were projected to be about 5,000 square feet each, and the fourth was projected at 7,000 square feet. At that time we noted that the hillside where the homes were planned was quite steep — so steep that it had avoided development for eighty years while houses had been erected in every other part of the neighborhood. We also noted that neighbors were worried about what such large scale development would do to a hillside that is home to a large number of native trees and a wide variety of local wildlife. In February, many Oaks residents attended the hearing for a Haul Route for the development. After hearing about the risks involved with the project, the Building and Safety commission placed the issuance of the permit in abeyance pending an environmental study.

Additionally a group of neighbors came together to try to persuade the developer to reduce the scope of the development or, failing that, sell some or all of the lots to the adjacent homeowners so that they could remain undeveloped. Finally, the developer did enter into negotiations to sell the two end lots to the adjacent neighbors, but stated her intention to build one very large house on the two middle lots.

The whole issue heated up considerably late in the afternoon on Friday, June 23rd when a landscaping crew that had previously been doing brush clearance started clear-cutting all the trees on the site – California live oaks, walnuts and toyons. Many of the trees were mature and decades old. Neighbors converged to confront the tree crew, telling them that the tree-cutting was illegal, that the entire project was under environmental review, and that the Oak and Walnut trees required permits for removal as required by the city’s new protected tree ordinance. One neighbor was nearly hit by a felled tree as it came down the hill. After neighbors began taking pictures, the cutting crew left in a hurry.

Neighbors then filed a report of illegal treecutting with the city. The next morning, June 24th, the tree-cutting crew returned but found a group of neighbors waiting for them. The developer’s representative was called, as was the police department. The representative came out to the site and, in front of LAPD officers, admitted that he had no permit to remove the protected trees. Shortly afterward the tree crew withdrew for good, but the damage had been done.

Oaks residents, including intrepid Board President Gerry Hans, took extensive photography of the tree-cutting, the tree service vehicles and the personnel on the site. These photographs, along with eyewitness testimony from neighbors were submitted to the City’s Urban Forestry Division for appropriate action.

Currently the Forestry Division is considering civil charges against the property owner and criminal charges against the tree-cutting company. Final word on whether charges will be filed has not been given. Because this is one of the first cases brought to the Forestry Division under the new protected tree regulations, Division personnel are still working out how to proceed.

Currently the two end lots of the four have closed escrow and are now the property of the adjacent neighbors. And as part of that sales agreement, the developer has agreed that the two center lots will only hold one house.

The trees that were cut down are a terrible loss for the neighborhood. This entire episode demonstrates the lengths to which certain developers are willing to go to exploit high real estate prices for quick profits at the expense of our quality of life and the character of our neighborhood.

It was a sign of the times when I recognized that one of the ‘perks’ of growing up on a block in Beverly Hills, was the rapid response of the police department to all manner of 911 calls. Years later, this came to mind when my family was living in Windsor Square, adjacent to Hancock Park, during the riots that occurred after the Rodney King verdict. The rioters and looters marched up Western Avenue, a few blocks east of where we were living. We sat in our home listening, as gunfire was exchanged, feeling helpless and scared.

Living in the Oaks, we have felt some degree of separation, high above the known gang turf and high crime areas of Los Angeles and Hollywood. But this is no longer true. We are no longer insulated from any of this. We have a police department that is sorely understaffed and thus needs citizens and homeowners to participate in crime prevention, earthquake preparedness plans, and fire prevention.

Granted, we do have the mixed blessing of narrow, winding streets, that to some degree act as a deterrent to mobile burglars who are hampered trying to make a quick getaway. The adjacent freeways, however, are easy to hop on and off. One of the things that we enjoy as Oaks homeowners is the glorious diversity of our houses. This has its downside, too, in that both the unique variety of houses and their irregular lots hamper visibility from the street for the detection of burglaries and home invasion crimes. With the re-opening of the Griffith Park Observatory and attendant shuttle buses, we need to brace ourselves for a possible increase in crime in our neighborhood. There is also much new building currently going up and proposed in The Oaks, offering exceptional opportunity for burglars to pass unnoticed.

There is much we Oaks homeowners can do to better protect ourselves. Individually we can be diligent in our brush clearance, react responsibly to red alert warnings.We can invest in better outdoor lighting of our properties, clear shrubbery near home entrances, and purchase alarm systems ranging from hi-tech devices to a companion dog. However our greatest strength is in our numbers and our determination.

One proven method of defense is to be better organized as a unit. If we can unite as a community and form an Oaks NeighborhoodWatch, we will be better protected, better alerted to danger, better informed, and better prepared for emergencies, with certain responses in place. We will also be better connected with the members of our local police department who are charged with working with the Oaks Community.

With this in mind as your Board Member in charge of Security, I would like to invite everyone who is interested in being part of this proposed Oaks Homeowners’ Neighborhood Watch Committee, to contact me at jeff.copans@oakshome.org.

I hope there will be sufficient interest and numbers of volunteers that we can move forward with this initial step toward keeping the Oaks a safe place.

In an effort to expand their coverage area, TMobile and Cingular Wireless have erected two new cell phone transmitters along the 2300 and 2400 blocks of Canyon Drive. Reception of their signals will, however, be limited to Bronson Canyon and not be available in upper hillside areas such as The Oaks.

But that's not the only bad news.

Mounted on monstrous 50-foot poles, with ugly antennas on top and unsightly cabinets and pipes attached to them, the new cell sites are true eyesores in our neighborhood.

What is of even greater concern, at least to residents who live in close proximity to these transmitters, is the potentially harmful radiation these cell sites emit: Continuous exposure to their beams over a long period of time is suspected to cause cancer and memory loss. Cell phone carriers prefer to dispute that claim but are, nevertheless, reluctant to make any written statements about the safety of their equipment.

Despite these worrisome facts, most cell sites along residential streets such as T-Mobile's new transmitter at 2353 Canyon Drive can be installed without any city permits. Why?

Cell phone service providers are considered "utilities". That means that under current law they can choose and access any existing utility pole as long as that pole is located in a public "right-ofway", such as the area next to a sidewalk in front of a home. If all their equipment can be mounted on one of these poles, no inspection is required by any government agency, not even the notification of City officials, nearby homeowners, or local neighborhood organizations, such as The Oaks Homeowners Association.

Once a transmitter is installed and operational, the law leaves it up to the carrier to monitor the Radio Frequency emissions of that transmitter to make sure that it complies with FCC safety regulations.

As residents are usually not notified or asked for approval before a cell site is erected in front of their homes, families who live close to a transmitter have no choice but to accept that they are exposed to some level of radiation around the clock every day of the year.

Even worse: As the many cellular companies compete over the best locations for their equipment, residents who live at "strategic locations" - like the homeowners in the 2300 and 2400 blocks of Canyon Drive - end up being surrounded by the cell sites of competing carriers and exposed to multiple doses of continuous radiation.

T-Mobile and Cingular Wireless could have placed their new transmitters at locations outside of our neighborhood and away from any homes, but both carriers did not want to deal with the "red tape" and higher costs they would have incurred at those alternative sites.

Both The Oaks Homeowners Association and the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council have expressed their displeasure with the fact that residents of Bronson Canyon were neither notified in advance nor were their concerns heard prior to construction of the two new cell phone transmitters. Members of both organizations want to see a stop to the uncontrolled proliferation of cell sites on our residential streets. They also hope that the City will follow the example of other municipalities, such as the City of Beverly Hills, which have passed ordinances that give city government and residents some influence over the location and appearance of new cell sites, and over the length of time for which a permit is issued.

In response to these complaints and urged by more than 200 residents who have signed a petition opposing the installation of new cell sites on Canyon Drive, Councilmember Tom LaBonge has responded decisively. On October 6, joined by Councilmember Janice Hahn who has received similar complaints from her constituency, Mr. LaBonge introduced a motion in City Council calling for more government oversight, including prior notification and input from community groups, into the placement and appearance of cell phone transmitters on existing utility poles in residential neighborhoods.

The two Councilmembers announced their motion at a morning news conference held at the T-Mobile cell site in front of 2353 Canyon Drive. The media event was attended by approximately fifty residents of our neighborhood and covered by all major radio and tv stations of the city. Further attention to the topic was drawn by a two-page article in the LOS ANGELES TIMES which appeared on Friday, October 6th, the day of the press conference.

A “Pedestrian” Festival of Lights?

Following action taken by the Parks, Rivers, and Open Space Committee (PROS) of the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council, our Association unanimously adopted a resolution asking DWP to transform its holiday “Festival Of Lights” through Griffith Park to a mostly pedestrian event. Our resolution states that such a change will be congruent with DWP’s own recently adopted “Principles for Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions”. Second, a pedestrian event will reduce localized pollution, to which children are most prone. Third, a pedestrian event will promote “healthy living” at the same time it is promoting a “healthy environment”. The health care community considers lack of exercise, consequent obesity and type II diabetes a major concern in LA, especially among the minority population who are in high attendance for this event.

The venue for the Festival of Lights is ideally suited for a pedestrian event. If you have driven the one mile strip on Crystal Springs Drive, you can understand how it would be even more enjoyable strolling with your family and friends, without the ambient lights and noise of idling cars. Plus you wouldn’t need to be stuck in that awful back-up of traffic, sometimes an hour and a half wait! And the weather? You can’t beat L.A.’s December weather. Many other cities have pedestrian lights festivals with much worse winter weather!

Similar resolutions have been adopted by, among others, The Los Feliz Improvement Association, The Atwater Neighborhood Council and The Hollywood United Neighborhood Council. Despite all this positive encouragement, the reaction from DWP has been less than enthusiastic. The talk from Council District 4 has so far also been tepid.

Master Planning Still!

TheWorking Group is now going into its 14th month of work to re-write a Master Plan for Griffith Park that has hopes of greater acceptance by the public. As you know, the contracted Melendrez Group draft plan cost the City over $400,000 and was pronounced DOA by the public at large. One of the contentions that the Working Group repeatedly voices to Recreation and Parks and Council District 4 is that the Working Group should be allowed a City staff member or a nominal budget for clerical help in compiling its written chapters. TheWorking Group is comprised of representatives from the public who spend a great deal of time meeting, discussing, writing, and re-writing. They do this on an unpaid basis while most having fulltime occupations of their own. It is unclear why the City cannot return the favor with a little help. Can anyone imagine why?

The Working Group’s final product will be a document within which the community finally does have a say. Visions, goals, and principles are being set down by theWorking Group with special attention paid to Griffith Park’s natural offerings, Griffith Park’s current user groups, and with only minor physical changes recommended for the Park. In contrast, the Melendrez Group’s draft focused most of its attention on specific “Built Environment” concepts to “realize” the Park’s “full potential”.

It seems to me there are a lot more coyotes roaming the streets and backyards of The Oaks than there were just a year ago. And the 2:00 A.M. howling of whole packs has become an almost nightly concert. I've asked neighbors and everyone seems to agree there are more coyotes. There also seem to be more “Missing Cat” signs posted on streetlamps. I’d guess this is not unrelated. When I called the Griffith Park ranger station to ask if they’d noticed any change in the coyote population, a ranger told me they had not. Perhaps there aren’t more coyotes up in the Park, but there certainly are down here

My dogs have discovered coyote feces in the backyard and have – naturally, because they know I hate this -- gotten into it. The result was ringworm, which is really expensive to get rid of and contagious to humans.

So, a few precautions for us all so that the coyote herd doesn’t grow even bigger...

• Don’t put food outside to feed wild cats – the coyotes are getting it.

• Don’t put water out for coyotes or other wild animals. It draws them out of the park and into our neighborhood and bad things happen -- to them and to us.

• If you feed your dog outside, make sure there are no food remnants after the meal. And don’t store any dog food outside.

• Don’t overload your black garbage can. Make sure it’s completely closed. And for heaven’s sake, don’t put any exposed garbage bags out on the street – coyotes rip them open and scatter everything on your street.

• Keep the brush cleared in your yard. Thick, overgrown brush is a perfect hiding place for coyotes; thick brush is also a home for rats which are a good part of the coyotes’ diet.

If you’ve got other suggestions, and or if you’re a noted coyote expert, check in with us.

Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater
5919 Franklin Ave.
323-465-7980
www.UCBTHEATER.COM

9 O’Clock Players,
Assistance League of So. California
The Adventures of Peter and Wendy
1367 N. St. Andrews Place
323-469-1970
www.nineoclockplayers.com