Jon Nahhas, Boaters Coalition, is shown addressing the Small Craft Harbor Commission at Burton Chase Park Wednesday night. Nahhas presented a slide show and visually explained to commissioners what went wrong with their procedures.
There was standing room only as representatives from groups throughout the Marina listed objections to the plan for updating the Marina and explained such to the Small Craft Harbor Commissioners at Burton Chase Park Wednesday night.
Various tenant, lessee and boating association representatives, residents representing the birds and the environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA), individual boaters, and individual boating experts were all there to let the group know they were not happy with the plans for updating as presented. They were prepared and presented their cases, one by one.
Most concerned were those who objected to the moving of the boat launch to Fisherman’s village and described boat launch design as poorly considered and very dangerous for boaters.
One waterway designer said he would give any student he had an “F” if he designed something as dangerous as this proposed design. “Obviously he said designer is not familiar with tide and prevailing winds.” Designer said he would be happy to be an expert witness at any liability trial for a plaintiff. Right now the new design is to launch boats into the main channel and perpendicular to prevailing winds. Another speaker described it as dangerous for boaters as throwing puppies onto the 405.
The Meet
by Jon Nahhas
The Special Night Meeting for the Small Craft Harbor Commission on the Marina del Rey Visioning Plan was somewhat of a success for fans of the Marina. County Residents filled the Community Room at Burton Chace Park and overflowed into the outside quad area. Some very alarming details surfaced in the meeting which clearly exposed the fraudulent “public process” promised to the stakeholders in front of the California Coastal Commission on the MdR LCP Periodic Review hearings (November 3, 2011).
1) Gina Natoli from the Dept. of Regional Planning, mastermind of the MdR Visioning Process, divulged that the County did not need to report the results of the $Million dollar Visioning Process to the Coastal Commission for an LCP Update. This dysfunctional, fraudulent “public process” was essentially going to be a receive and file.
2) Many speakers stated that they never knew the Visioning Process was occurring. The Harbor Commission acknowledged that noticing obviously was inadequate and also found that there was substantial evidence of public input that was ignored in the Visioning Statement.
3) Long-time Harbor Consultant, Ron Noble, sat quietly as many experienced boating experts ripped apart his study for the relocation of the MdR Public Launch Ramp. One of the last speakers of the night was the former MdR Harbor Consultant who just couldn’t believe the ineptitude of the study and its findings for the relocation. We did not expose the County’s illegal verbal contract regarding this study nor the fact that Noble started it before the Visioning Process even began – didn’t want to incite a riot.
4) Residents from Mariners Village (MV) testified on their redevelopment issues but the County at several points tried to prevent them from speaking. A conflict arose when the Dept. of Beaches & Harbors Director, Gary Jones, suspiciously contradicted Gina Natoli (Visioning Chief) and stated that Mariners Village was not part of the Visioning Process. This now opens the actions taken at the meeting to a violation of the Brown Act. In speaking to the MV residents after the meeting, they didn’t understand the ramifications of the conflict but were glad that Chair Allyn Rifkin gave them a chance to speak.
5) The conflict also exposed that not only do the Commissioners of the MdR Small Craft Harbor Commission (SCHC), MdR Design Control Board, and attending public not know what the MdR Visioning Process is, but that the Dept. of Beaches & Harbors (who manage the Marina) don’t know what it is either!
6) The resulting action that was taken by the SCHC was in the form of a resolution (for their Commission) with commissioners acknowledging after the meeting that it won’t really mean much. Even if they deny the future projects for violating terms of their own resolution, it will continue on to the Regional Planning Commission (the ultimate rubber-stamp collective). The resolution involved 4 parts:
a) No increases in development density
b) No increases in building heights
c) Recreational Boating will be the #1 priority
d) The Public Launch Ramp is to remain on Parcel
7) The big victory was that many of the area residents came out and spoke on their concerns. The sad part is that most of the residents and boaters were not knowledgeable about the County’s plans already in progress for the development of the Marina and what is about to hit them in the next few months to continue over several years.
This was put in by Plinio but under Comments so in order to get it under proper story, I cut and pasted. Plinio Garcia –Hello, you may be aware that the county is trying to “destroy” fisherman’s village in order to:
1- turn it into a parking lot; or
2- tear it down to build a non-descript 5 story mixed use that will tripple the traffic WITHOUT widening the streets WITHOUT relocating the Sheriff’s office.
What will that mean? Traffic on Admiralty Way and Lincoln that will paralyze the entire Marina-Venice-Playa region.
What can you do?
email Supervisor Knabe’s representative Steve Napolitano at snapolitano@lacbos.org and sign http://www.thepetitionsite.com/542/788/551/preserve-fishermans-village-in-its-style-and-location/
Congratulations, you are the first news organization who published anything about the dramatic meeting and victory for the local residents and boaters, and environmentalists. It reminds me of our similar inspiring victory at the Coastal Commissions 2008 meeting at MdR. In that case, even though many of us were interviewed by the Times, no informative article ever appeared in the Times. i expect our victory will be ignored and mischaracterized and reversed by the same strategies that negated the 2008 meetings. But now we know how that happened. And we expect the same procedures in this case.
So the first thing to examine, is Sherlock Holm’s famous question, Why aren’t the dogs barking? Actually, one is barking, Bruce Russell, a Rueters Reporter and Bureau chief for both Washington DC and Los Angeles. His book, China Town County-the selling out of Marina del Rey , is a lively description of the corruption which is destroying our public marina. At the beginnning of the meeting, I asked if the commissioners had received copies of the book which the public gave to the Department of Beaches and Harbors to give to the SCHC commissioners. None of them were received. We will see if the DCB gets their copies at the beginning of their June meeting. Actually, Bruce will be at Pammy’s in Fisherman’s Village for a book signing this Saturday, tomorrow, starting at 4PM, if you want a copy. Or you can go to the local bookstores and either buy the book or add you comment to the Dogs Barking story, or you can read reviews in the local papers, or you can buy it on line, or read my enthusiastic review at Lulu.com and which, for some reason, only received one star.
Dan