To maintain and improve the quality of life in Westside Village by:
1) Developing and fostering community spirit and participation of residents in community activities and civic affairs;
2) Securing necessary public improvements;
3) Promoting health and safety measures;
4) Communicating with public officials in order to ensure our needs are met;
5) Preserving and improving property values.

Summer Sports Registration has begun at our local parks. The information can be obtained by going to the following websites or calling the park office. (If the links don't work, you may have to cut and paste into your browser.)

MAR VISTA RECREATION CENTER
http://www.laparks.org/dos/ereg/
facility/marVistaRC.htm
11430 Woodbine Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90066
Tel: (310) 398-5982

PALMS RECREATION CENTER
http://www.laparks.org/dos/ereg/
facility/palmsRC.htm
2950 Overland Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90064
(310) 838-3838

Looking for a different park, visit http://www.laparks.org/ and you can search for all LA City Parks.

From dragon puppets to dragon tattoos, there's something for everyone this summer at the
Palms-Rancho Park Library, 2920 Overland Avenue.

Please note the change in hours starting July 18, 2010.

Want to have a say in what your subway will look like and where it will go?

As planners prepare to extend the subway westward, Metro is headed back to the Westside for a new series of community meetings this spring.

The meetings, which begin April 12, will feature updates on station planning, locations and design. Metro’s last round of community meetings in the fall of 2009 regularly attracted hundreds of people.

This time around, Metro officials will provide preliminary information on the five alternative routes for the extension currently under review. These proposed routes would add branches and stations at varying points throughout the Westside, including stations at Wilshire/Crenshaw and in the Westwood/UCLA area.

Information and community input from the meetings will be considered before Metro releases a Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIS/EIR) this coming summer. Technical analysis and development plans in the Draft EIS/EIR will be made available for public review before construction begins on the project.

Meeting schedules and summaries of past meetings are available here.

(NFSR is a private organization that does not represent an official position of the WVHA.)

Excerpted from www.smartrail.org

For almost 3 years NFSR has been working in the Expo corridor, collaborating with groups in South and West Los Angeles, to fight the Expo Authority's intention of running the majority of the Expo Line at-grade (street level) through residential neighborhoods, adjacent to schools and parks, with little or no regard to the safety, traffic or community environmental impacts such as noise, vibration and visual blight.

Here is what we believe:

1. Running 240 trains a day at street level (at-grade) through residential communities within 50 feet of schools and homes, blocking access to parks and businesses, and grid-locking north/south streets is unacceptable. Specific to our area is the traffic wall created when Expo trains close Overland, Westwood, and Sepulveda for 40-82 seconds every 2 ½ minutes, blocking Century City, Fox Studio, Beverly Hills and Westwood from access to the 10 FWY and the 405 FWY; safety risks to students at Overland; permanent loss of privacy for many homes; constant vibration and noise from at-grade rail blaring horns as they cross Overland, Westwood, Military and Sepulveda, all within ¾ of a mile! Underground crossings will eliminate almost all environmental impacts.

2. Stations and parking lots have the highest crime rates in transit environments—our community will have 2 stations with parking lots, at Westwood and Sepulveda, less than ½ mile apart, operating 22 hours a day. The number of buses on Westwood Boulevard will double, further impacting area traffic. Parking will be removed on Overland, Westwood and Sepulveda. Westwood will lose many of the scenic liquid amber trees lining the boulevard.

3. Expo Phase 2 misses all major Westside job centers from Culver City to Santa Monica and in WLA as it travels through mostly residential neighborhoods. The Expo Light Rail will benefit Santa Monica development and it will be a developer's feast on the already congested Westside. A prime example is the massive Casden project which, by sharing MTA/Expo property, parking and station area at Sepulveda and Exposition, qualifies for a density bonus allowing additional apartments adding even more to the project's predicted 11,000 car trips daily. The City Planning Department is already planning R-1 zoning changes to our WLA Community Plan to accommodate "workforce housing" along the Expo line (i.e., Ayres, Overland and Sepulveda).

4. The Metro Grade Separation Policy is a fraud. It is predisposed to putting all rail crossings at grade. It is not sanctioned by the FTA and is based on research designed and paid for by Korve Engineering who did the engineering on Expo Phase 1. Korve was subsequently bought by DMJM/Harris who are the current Expo engineers. MTA's policy looks at traffic volume per lane and train frequency first. If the traffic count is low enough the train crossing goes at grade regardless of proximity to schools, homes, hospitals or parks. Any safety considerations are simply refinements to an already at-grade crossing. Under the MTA crossing policy a single lane crossing in one direction will be evaluated the same as a crossing with 12 lanes in six directions. Note: if you add extra lanes right at the crossings like they are doing at Overland, Westwood and Sepulveda, the traffic volume (of course) goes down resulting in an MTA rationale for an at-grade decision. By their policy, grade separations evidently occur only when public agencies or politicians intervene. Putting extra traffic lanes only near the Expo crossings will create bottlenecks at both ends when the lanes then merge back before Pico (north) and National (south). An underground alignment does not impact our north/south streets.

5. Lack of political representation from our County Supervisor, who actually acted to prevent grade separation at Foshay Learning Center on Phase 1, and the prior CD-5 Council office has undermined the legitimate community safety, traffic, and quality of life concerns on Expo. Continuing to write and FAX letters and sending e-mails is very important so our elected officials can't say they didn't hear from the community.

6. The fully underground "subway to the sea" is a better option. It will connect downtown and the valley with the Wilshire Corridor, Korea Town, Museum Row, Hancock Park, Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, UCLA, the Veteran Administration, Santa Monica and hundreds of thousand people and jobs in between. If there is no money to build Expo right, pull the plug on Phase 2. Use the money to grade-separate critical crossings on Phase 1 and the rest to support the Purple Line to the sea, a true regional transit project. It has 100% community support throughout and it will make Expo redundant the day it opens. Why should Expo and the Subway, the region's only rail lines, travel mere blocks apart in Santa Monica and end up at the same place? The subway could be completed years earlier with Expo money.

7. This is a complex multi-year fight. LA needs mass transit but not so desperately that we are required, as Santa Monica is asking, to "lean in and take one for the team." Santa Monica is not on our team. West Los Angeles is a place. It is not a satellite of Culver City, Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. Our community is worth preserving and defending. Your continued involvement is important.

Imagine living in a neighborhood where help was always available to you, especially in time of need. Imagine the opportunity for social gatherings and trips planned with your neighbors. Imagine saving money through collective discounts with local vetted vendors. Imagine a “Village” in the City of Los Angeles here to help you.

We are a new non-profit group founded by neighborhood volunteers whose mission is to help older adults in our community continue living at home with dignity, independence, and an enhanced quality of life. Our vision is to build and maintain a community that supports its older residents by providing affordable, membership based, and consumer driven services. As a resident who is 50 and over you will be able to:

• Have one phone number to call when you need advice or help
• Have vetted and discounted vendors
• Have volunteer opportunities
• Have increased opportunity for social, cultural, educational, and intergenerational contact with your neighbors

Consumer-driven means that the consumer determines what services are offered. If we cannot find a volunteer to help you, we will refer you to a provider who we have pre-screened and is willing to offer you a discount. We will follow up with you to make sure you were satisfied with your service.

Your needs could be simple such as needing someone to wait for a repairman at your home, advice about choosing a plumber or handyman or help fixing your computer. Or your needs could be more in depth, such as you have an important and stressful doctor’s appointment and want an advocate to come with you, you broke a bone and need to hire temporary help or you want someone to check in on you from time to time. Or perhaps you just want to feel part of a group – connected to others in your community. That’s where we come in. Our new “Village” will be part of a nationwide movement to provide social support that allows you to “age in place.” This movement began in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston in 2000 and has grown to include at least 46 successful programs throughout the United States.

We expect to begin offering services starting next summer. The membership fee still needs to be determined, but with volunteer support and fundraising efforts, the fee will be as low as possible, most likely a few hundred dollars for access to services for 12 months. When there are more developments on our new “Village,” we will update you. In the meantime, please feel free to email Lori Gilder at village@marvistaowls.org for more information.

Do you want to have a positive effect in our neighborhood? Do you want to get to know your neighbors better? If so, then consider being a block captain. There are still a few blocks that need block captains or some block captains would like to have a co-captain. If you are interested, please contact our Neighborhood Watch at WestsideVillageWatch@gmail.com or the board at westsidevillageboard@yahoo.com.

The responsibilities include keeping an updated neighbor contact list, delivering newsletters and forwarding information to their individual blocks. Most communication can be handled via email in the comfort of your own home and we only have three newsletters a year. Please consider taking on this valuable position to help keep us safe and informed.

Sign up to receive LAPD alerts and more through the www.Nixle.com service. This is a nationwide service that LAPD and many other cities across the country have adopted that send out official email and text alerts. To sign up go to www.lapdonline.org and click on the Nixle icon on the LAPD web page.

This program encourages citizens to submit suspicious activity reports and has also been adopted nationwide. Information about this important program are also posted/linked on the www.lapdonline.org web page. Los Angeles has a number of possible terrorist targets: LAX, the ports, beaches, hospitals and the Federal Building, to name a few. The goal of this program is to give citizens a way to help the various law enforcement agencies keep us safe. It’s a natural extension of neighborhood watch.