The ballerina takes a bow

As thoughts turn to the visions of sugarplums that spice up the holiday ballet season, Yvonne Mounsey stands—regally, of course—for the grace and fortitude behind the glitter.

The acclaimed ballet instructor and former ballerina wears the mantle of her 90 years so lightly that she virtually bounded up to the dais recently to receive special birthday honors from Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and his board colleagues. With her ageless vitality (not to mention her envy-inspiring posture), Mounsey graciously acknowledged the tribute. “I really love what I do, and have been doing for so many years, and hope to continue to do what we do for ballet, particularly in Los Angeles,” the dancer explained simply.

The journey from international dancer to Westside ballet doyenne was anything but simple. Consider the person behind the proclamation:

A native of South Africa, Mounsey found her artistic calling at an early age. In 1949, after more than a decade of work in several ballet troupes that carried her to varied locales on the Continent, throughout North America, Central America, Cuba and Australia, legendary choreographer George Balanchine recruited her for his fledgling New York City Ballet. There, she performed as a soloist and later principal dancer in memorable roles such as the Siren in Balanchine’s “Prodigal Son” and many others before returning to South Africa in 1960 to co-found the Johannesburg Ballet.

Later, she relocated to Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. In 1967, she took over a struggling dancing school and formed an enduring artistic partnership with former Royal Ballet dancer Rosemary Valaire. Together, they established the Westside Ballet, today one of the West Coast’s most esteemed ballet academies.

“We present performances of the Nutcracker every year and the spring performance, at reasonable prices so all the children can come and see us,” Mounsey told the Board, “so that’s our aim, is to give ballet and the arts to the children.” That she has done for more than seven decades, and the world of dance is richer for it.

Watch Dance TV’s earlier birthday tribute here, and learn more about the Westside Ballet here.

County crosses signals with FCC on cell towers

They can disguise them as palm trees, but there’s no disguising the fact that deciding where to place cellphone towers is an important—and sometimes controversial—part of the local planning process.

In Los Angeles County, it requires a conditional use permit. Obtaining one for a new wireless telecommunications facility can take months. The public has a chance to weigh in, and in some cases the process goes all the way to the Board of Supervisors.

But now the Federal Communications Commission, acting on a petition filed by a wireless trade association, wants to drastically speed up the process.

The Board of Supervisors says not so fast.

Concerned about the FCC directive establishing a “shot clock” requiring land use decisions on wireless facilities in as few as 90 days, the supervisors on Tuesday authorized the County Counsel to take steps to appeal the ruling or join with other local governments in doing so.

The urgent motion by Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael D. Antonovich noted the impending deadline for filing a notice of appeal—this Thursday, December 3. The county was part of a group of local governments that took part in the FCC process and strongly opposed the commission’s Nov. 18 decision.

The motion said the FCC decision would undermine the county’s ability to use the zoning process for “the careful and thorough consideration of wireless facilities” and would in effect push cellphone towers to the head of the line for conditional use permits.

“This ruling will require giving special favored treatment to wireless telecommunication applications over other land use applications,” the motion said.

There are hundreds of wireless telecommunications facilities in the county, and requests to build new ones come in at a rapid clip, with a dozen applications and renewals pending in the next 12 weeks alone. While most are handled at the hearing officer level, some generate enough public interest and concern to reach the Regional Planning Commission or the Board of Supervisors.

Under the FCC directive, an applicant could sue if the county missed the deadline; the county would then have to go to court to present evidence “to overcome a presumption that it acted in an untimely manner,” the motion said.

Jim Hobson, an attorney who represented local entities including the county and city of Los Angeles, San Diego and Glendale in the FCC process, said local control over the placement of wireless facilities is an essential component of good zoning. Localities, he said, are in the best position to decide matters of safety, traffic and aesthetics in their areas.

He questioned whether the FCC had the authority to interpret Congress’ intent on the matter.

He noted that the FCC deadlines –90 days for “co-located” facilities in existing sites, 150 days for other applications—would be more manageable in smaller areas than Los Angeles. But he said that even in those jurisdictions there is considerable concern that the FCC will eventually insert itself into other aspects of the local planning process.

“It’s easy to be deluded by the seeming mildness of the encroachment,” Hobson said, calling the FCC decision “an entering wedge.”

The FCC decision was prompted by a petition by the wireless industry trade group CTIA. In a statement, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski called it “an important step to cut through red tape and accelerate the deployment of next-generation wireless services.” Genachowski said the new deadlines are necessary to deal with the volume of more than 3,000 applications pending nationwide—760 of them for more than a year and 180 for more than three years.

He said the directive does not “limit state and local governments’ fundamental authority over local land use.”

In the motion, Yaroslavsky disagreed: “While the FCC claims its decision does not preempt local zoning, it does exactly that.”

Wild females (Medfly variety) crash party

Ah, autumn at the Santa Monica Farmers Market: Heaps of glistening Meyer lemons, crisp Pink Lady apples, fragrant tangerines and guavas, deep orange persimmons…and acres of tulle netting and PVC pipe?

The inedible items on that list are courtesy of some uninvited guests—three wild female Mediterranean fruit flies, two of them sexually mature and “mated.” The flies crashed the Thanksgiving party early at Westside farmers markets, triggering a quarantine that will affect Santa Monica’s four markets and those in 11 other areas for months. In all, 17 certified farmers markets are affected.

That means that farmer-vendors at venues including the Wednesday Santa Monica market—widely regarded as one of the nation’s premier markets, and a must-shop-stop for L.A.’s top chefs—must protect all host fruit while it is on display in the quarantine area. And while they can bring in crops from outside the quarantine area, they can’t bring home unsold fruits and vegetables. Those must be either donated or dumped.

“Sales are going to go down,” says Dolores Cabral of Cabral Farms in Ontario, who sells at Santa Monica’s Saturday market. “People are going to ask questions. I’ve been through those quarantines for many years. It’s a big hassle with the nets.”

The timing is terrible—this week’s pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday market in Santa Monica is the biggest of the year—but veteran market folks say it’s nothing they can’t handle.

“Fortunately, right now, it’s a fairly small deal,” says Laura Avery, supervisor of the Santa Monica Farmers Markets. “We’ve all been through this. We all know what to do.”

Phil McGrath of McGrath Family Farm in Camarillo, who will be selling produce ranging from heirloom tomatoes to haricot beans, agreed, but said this week’s “Thanksgiving Wednesday,” as it’s known at the market, will have an extra layer of complications on an already demanding day. “We double pick and triple pick items. We know it’s a big day… It’s a food frenzy.”

He said that he did not expect to take an economic hit, however. “We have such a loyal customer base,” McGrath said Tuesday. “The cash customers tomorrow are the truly the heart and soul of our business…There’s the Medfly hassle factor, but I know we’re going to sell out.”

The Medflies were caught Oct. 29 in a Santa Monica backyard in the one of the tens of thousands of traps that Los Angeles County has placed throughout the area. County Agricultural Commissioner Kurt E. Floren told the Board of Supervisors in a letter that day that the immediate area has been treated with hand-sprayed Spinosad bait, an organic product derived from soil bacteria. No aerial spraying is planned.

The quarantine, mapped here by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, affects a 65-square-mile radius from Santa Monica, taking in markets in Pacific Palisades, Venice, Mar Vista, Culver City, Westwood, Westwood Village, Brentwood, Century City, Playa Vista and West Los Angeles, as well as the La Cienega market.

The list of possible host fruits and vegetables that must be covered with tulle netting propped up with PVC piping includes eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, apples and avocados, as well as all citrus.

“The farmers are very good. The customers are very supportive. We’re not going to be (aerial) spraying,” Avery says. “The bottom line is nobody wants this bug to spread. The Medfly has never been established in California because of these procedures.”

USDA spokesman Larry Hawkins, who said other Medfly quarantines are currently in effect in San Diego County communities including Fallbrook and El Cajon, said the Santa Monica quarantine is expected to last six months, and possibly longer. He said vigilance is essential because the Medfly is such a destructive bug, known to infest 260 varieties of fruits, nuts and vegetables: “It’s the most significant fruit fly pest on the planet.”

Under quarantine rules, people who grow fruit at home are not allowed to transport it from their property. This state brochure contains other information about how consumers should handle Medfly issues.

County agriculture officials are particularly concerned about travelers bringing in fruit from places like Hawaii and Mexico.

“We don’t know where these Medflies came from this time,” department spokesman Ken Pellman says. “But we need the public’s help in not bringing in fruits, vegetables, and plant material from outside of the state or country unless it has been officially inspected, and not taking those things elsewhere when they are under quarantine.”

Trying to tame the fearsome 405 [updated]

The Sepulveda Pass—three words that strike terror in the hearts of drive-time commuters everywhere. But an ambitious project funded partly with federal stimulus dollars is aiming to ease the fear factor on the 405.

It won’t happen overnight. By the time it’s completed in the spring of 2013, however, the project will create a 10-mile northbound carpool lane on the 405 between the Santa Monica (10) and Ventura (101) freeways. It will provide a crucial connecting link in the freeway’s carpool lane system extending north from the Orange County line.

Relief can’t come soon enough for the hundreds of thousands of commuters who travel through the pass each day. They currently experience 15,000 “vehicle-hours” of delay daily; Caltrans estimates that unless something is done, the congestion would hit 27,800 vehicle-hours by 2015 and 59,430 by 2031.

“Most of the commute would be at a complete standstill,” says Mike Barbour, Metro’s project director on the 405 work. “If we don’t do this, it will be horrendous.”

The work extends beyond adding the carpool lane. Workers will also realign 27 on- and off-ramps; widen 13 overpasses and structures; build some 18 miles of retaining and sound walls, and remove and replace bridges at the Skirball Center, Sunset Boulevard and Mulholland Drive. Oh, and they’ll be doing some road improvements on nearby streets, too.

It’s a big job—officials say the project will create 18,000 jobs during construction, although not all of those are local. For now, workers in the pre-construction phase are busy surveying storm drains and utilities, and doing the soil testing that is essential to the design process. Project officials also are working with a community advisory committee made up of homeowners and neighborhood councils to get feedback on the design process, and will continue working with the group though construction. A community meeting will be held Nov. 19 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles.

Signs will be posted to let motorists know when the project is expected to begin and end. Traffic lanes will be reconfigured and a safe work zone set up behind those concrete barriers known as “k-rail.” Once that’s done, officials say, northbound drivers should have the same five lanes available during the project as they did before it started—and will, of course, have a new 6th lane for carpools when it’s done.

“We are doing everything we can to reduce the overall construction time frame,” Barbour says, adding there is an incentive for the contractor to finish early. Barbour urges commuters to check the project website frequently for updates during construction.

The project, a partnership of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), is expected to cost $1.034 billion, with $189.9 million coming from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and the rest from state and other federal sources.

Updated, 11/10/09:
Just in time for the holiday rush at LAX, Caltrans has opened the new carpool lane on the southbound 405 from the Santa Monica Freeway to the Marina Freeway (SR-90.) The northbound carpool lane covering the same stretch is set to open before Thanksgiving.

“It’s going to definitely alleviate the flow of traffic, especially during the holidays,” when carloads of travelers picking up or dropping off passengers can take advantage of a high-occupancy lane, says Sgt. Jim Holcomb of the LAX Airport Police.

The five-year, $167 million project—which also included work on National, Culver and Palms boulevards—makes it possible to travel via carpool lane on the southbound San Diego Freeway from the San Fernando Valley through Orange County.

Updated 12/29/09:
Night work on the 405 carpool lane project begins Jan. 12, with closures of ramps, individual lanes and the entire northbound freeway planned for various times through mid-March. The work—to lay out temporary lanes and set up protective work barriers—will take place from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays, with full closures slated only between midnight and 5 a.m. As the project moves forward, look for updated information on lane and ramp closures here.

7 things you should know about the Westside Subway

With the Metro board’s recent approval of long range transportation projects for the region, the Westside Subway extension is embarking on an important new stage in its journey. With Santa Monica envisioned as the line’s ultimate destination, there is currently $4.1 billion in local funding, mostly from Measure R, to get it as far as Westwood. Federal dollars will be essential to finish the job.

Some critics of the proposed line argue that it will take too long to build, divert resources from other parts of the region and tunnel through some geological challenges. But proponents, including Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, an MTA board member, say the subway’s projected ridership success makes it the best bet for getting federal dollars, particularly since Measure R already is funding projects such as Expo Phase II, the Gold Line/Foothill extension and the Crenshaw Transit Corridor.

Key decisions are still to come on design and technical matters; community meetings are taking place to help determine the placement of stations, and there’s a new video to promote the project (thanks to Steve Hymon for flagging this at Metro’s new blog, The Source.)

So even though the first phase of the project—to Fairfax–won’t be completed until 2019, it’s not too early to know what’s driving the train.

It will go where jobs are.

The Westside has hundreds of thousands of jobs in a relatively concentrated area—currently 429,000 of them, according to the latest mid-year forecast by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.– and commuters who live in outlying areas where housing is more affordable will be able to take advantage of them. That will be a boon to area business owners who’ve long complained about difficulties in hiring and retaining workers frustrated with time-consuming commutes, says Jack Kyser of the Kyser Center for Economic Research, one of the forecast’s authors. A bonus: those jobs are the highest-paying in the county—averaging $66,497 a year. The area also is home to UCLA, the 7th largest employer in the region, with more than 28,000 faculty and staff members.

It will create jobs.

Thousands of jobs will be created. As a rule of thumb, the building trades industry estimates 6,000 construction- and construction-related jobs per $1 billion invested in a project. The exact number of jobs in the long run, however, is hard to predict because those initially hired could stay with the project for multiple years, thus driving down the overall job count.

It will benefit commuters throughout the county.

Metro estimates that 64% of the line’s benefits—a federal formula measuring ridership and time saved–would go to those outside the Westside, with the greatest benefit (22 percent) accruing to the San Gabriel Valley. Metro research shows that more than 310,000 people travel into the Westside from across the region each morning, while 137,000 others leave it and 88,000 travel within it. Meanwhile, UCLA, California’s largest university, is a major area-wide draw with nearly 38,000 students, and the subway extension also has the potential of boosting cross-town access to a variety of major cultural venues, from Disney Hall and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Royce Hall.

It will save thousands of hours in commuting time.

A hypothetical twice-a-day commuter from Koreatown to Westwood would get back the equivalent of eight days in saved commuting time each year by using the subway, according to Metro estimates. Someone commuting from Pasadena would save even more time–12 days a year. To put it another way, that Pasadena commuter currently spending 82 minutes to get from Pasadena to Westwood on public transportation would be able to make the one-way trip in just 50 minutes. “It actually shrinks the city, in a sense,” says David Karwaski, planning and policy manager in UCLA’s Transportation Services Department.

It will help LA to get a greater share of federal transit dollars.

Putting this project in the pipeline sets the stage for Los Angeles to get an allotment that’s more like the New York/New Jersey behemoth, shown in this Metro graphic representing 2010 federal funding for new transit starts. A far more robust showing is possible in the future now that the board has adopted its long range projects priority list. Move over, New York and Salt Lake City. Hello, Los Angeles.

It will help relieve overcrowding on the region’s busiest bus corridor, Wilshire Boulevard.

The Wilshire corridor is the most heavily used bus corridor in the County of Los Angeles, with some 70,000 boardings every weekday from downtown to Santa Monica. With tens of thousands of office workers pouring into the area each day, and bumper-to-bumper traffic at peak hours not only on Wilshire but on the Santa Monica Freeway, the project provides a new option for bus riders while also easing the overall traffic crunch.

It beats taking the 10.

Need we say more?

Check out this Metro-produced video on the Westside Subway