(Wilcox And Vicinity Emprovement, a neighborhood improvement association, first assembled in the lobby of the Lido Apartments in Spring of ‘81, participated in efforts to revitalize our old Hollywood since then, including  the CRA Hollywood Project, the coalition of neighborhood watch groups called United Streets of Hollywood, the Hollywood Coordinating Council, etc., and more recently as a founding member  association of The YUCCA CORRIDOR COALITION)

Neighbors, our community meeting of Jan. 18th was a good beginning, ....in that:

• We got together...a first in too a long time, to share our problems with Council reps., LAPD’s S.L.O, CRA  and HED, etc.
• That our issues were shown to be not ours alone, but central to the renaissance of our famed Old Hollywood. For example:

Street safety, abating vagrants, panhandlings, street gangs, drug sales, etc.

Parking, More:  both on- and off-street.

Late hour noise & disturbances, trespasses, public drunkenness and defecations in our central residential neighborhood.

The ongoing fundamental conflicts of activity arising from weaknesses in our zoning, of a historic origin.

• Rarest of all such, we presented affordable and innovative opportunities to abate our problems, in addition to drawing attention to the entities primarily created to achieve this. 

Topics were:

Dog owners  and the street ‘debris’:  doggy doo.  Suggestions for abatings such were:  more plastic dispensers, street containers, placards urging compliance, etc.

Complaints regarding the Hillview Apts. @ Hollywood Blvd & Hudson Ave.  Long unhabitable, and the mess after the New Year’s day fire (at which time we had reproached the firemen for not taking a longer holiday and ending the prolonged public misery of this unredeemable ruin.)

The noise, late-hour use, and the never ending dust from the soccer field @ the ‘rec’ center @ Cherokee and Yucca.  This by neighbors.  Also, that it wasn’t used by neighborhood kids but by mature strangers.  Similarly, the park, used only by a cluster of what appeared to be vagrants.

The new operator of the Pla-Boy presented a brochure in which he responded to community outrage at the attraction of vagrants, bums, panhandlers, loiterers etc. who consumed their 40 oz. beer bottles on the sidewalks and private areas of the vicinity.  He promised not to sell to such, and to discourage undesirables from loitering around his premises.

The manager of the Goldfinger was berated for their lack of cooperation with residents.  Over the years, despite the original assurances by the owner upon assuming control, that it was to be a quiet jazz club, not, as previously the "Hell’s Gate" dance hall, whose similar horrendous noise, we believe led to the untimely death of neighboring owner, Nell Huckaby.  Nell died in ‘93 in the arms of her sister.  To gain surcease from the pounding drumming till 2 AM, she would stay at her sister’s home in Inglewood rather than at her home @1812 Wilcox Ave, adjacent to Goldfinger. 

• The line of homeless addicts awaiting the 7 am opening of the Pla-Boy, has greatly lessened, as have the panhandlers at the corner and we have been, so far, spared the endless chore of picking up 40 oz. empties, litter, trespassers and shutting out noise.
• The Goldfinger has largely returned to using their front entrance on Yucca St. and parking customer cars on the Yucca Plaza lot.
• Pla-Boy Liquor volunteered to close all 32 oz. beer sales on Sunday till noon.  We responded:  Sunday had not been a special problem day, that rather, much more needed by neighbors, was a nightly closing @ 9 pm rather than 2 am, like all neighboring stores.

• To encourage the management to be more neighborhood friendly.
• To press the property owner to restore the entire building to some appearance of respectability.

One activist, a dear friend and a hard worker for improvement hereabouts, had casually commented:  that the new owner was a ‘good guy,' meaning some assurance.  This is not only empty of such, it is annoying, and, candidly, damn annoying.  The owners of the Goldfinger’s were of good repute, and gave fulsome assurances, but damn it....it just doesn’t work to license noise next to folk who have to sleep.  You just license conflict and needless loss of quality of life and desirability of a vicinity for both.  Years of disturbance to residents, tolerated noise, traffic and parking intrusions, finally came to petitions for abatements.  Improvement of residence becomes a damn career, simply because of such unwise permittings of conflicting uses.

We’ll be ready for any application to resume, other than restaurant use., i.e., entertainment permits, etc.  Happily, we have the attention of our Council member and our newly assigned Deputy City Attorney (see below)

Neighborhood Councils

Three Hollywood group applicants had presented their positions to a D.O.N.E. commission, @ Selma Ave School, Feb 26th evening.  It took from 5:30 pm to midnight for the various applicants to present their pleas, and the commission to decide:  on none!

The grim reality was that they had days ago so decided, (the savvy had confided the day before, that it was to be a ‘dog and pony’ show....and indeed so it proved.)

The totally outrageous abuse and derogation of the decent, hardworking citizenry present, all of  whom had given of their best, and devoted countless hours of devotion to the realization of this  curious civic instrument, was evident in that they were kept in a 6-1/2 hour audience, for a decision which should have been announced at the outset, with discussion/dissent to follow.  These folk,  our most civic minded kind, were treated like serfs.  And, the analysis of this construct is that  indeed is their status therein.

Having gone thru 5 years of  such with the CRA project,  I have long advised that this charter reform is beyond remedial attention. It must be repealed ASAP.

To construct complex and unrealistic shadow legislatures, whose only  power is ‘advisory’ to incumbent legislators, is a monstrous sham.  A sham not intended to ‘empower,’ but to totally frustrate & demoralize those sincerely desirous of civic progress.

The HILLVIEW Apts. Hollywood @ Hudson Ave. Background:

Since ‘95, we have fruitlessly gnawed at this ruin.  Urging its razing.

GOLDBERG’s deputy, then mindlessly insisted that it was ‘affordable’ housing, and that some remaining tenants wouldn’t move from the area.  We then knew of neighboring owners desperately wanting such reliable long term tenants, civil folk, not criminal druggies...we didn’t prevail, obviously.

What supposedly awaited was a settlement with the MTA for subway subsidence reimbursements.  Our point was:  advance funds via the CRA, pending such and get the damn ruin out of its scaffoldings.

The settlement came, some say $1 million, which the owners allegedly  promptly took and sold the ruin.  Various owners have since purchased and abandoned the effort, due to the need to restore it to ‘historic’ condition.  Totally commercially unaffordable....so, it sat and stank, and  gangs infested the remains.

Then came the aborted fire  and the loudmouth who proclaimed to naive TV ‘news’ faces, that public funds were direly needed to ‘restore’ this obscure ruin.

The lesson:

Extremist zealots hold all  our neighborhood improvement  hostage to their impossibly weird demands.  Just look at the Southeast corner of Yucca & Vine St.  That obscure building’s fronting wall, remains ..at monumental public cost, and to the improvements ongoing.  This is all by public money, not private.

The same with the Vine & Selma project.  Required to incorporate the burnt out ruins of a long  and now irrelevant past,into a new and totally unrelated project, no less than 3 developers have tried and opted out of the weird task.  Good-bye to a surreal world, they must have said.

Where we stand now:

We still greatly need abatement of street gangs and those who accommodate ‘em...whether residents or businesses.

We still need off street parking.  Desperately so, in the Wilcox Avenue vicinity.

We still need restricted parking, particularly closer to Highland Avenue.

We still need the bulldozing of the Hillview Apts.

The Youth recreational center still seems on course to be emplaced in the wrong place.  Our quiet voice hasn’t been heard.

Michelle Feenor, 4th Dist Deputy, has reported back that Tom La Bonge’s folks are working on the problems  which were presented.

My assessment is that: we need to ‘enrich’ with lurid detail the information they received  & that we have much more outreach to do, to create the popular pressure to realize it.  I believe we can achieve significant improvements in off street parking, since these dire needs are common to commerce as well as residents. 

An alliance with the Chamber, the H.E.D. could prove effective in assigning Parking funds to the purchase of vacant land for that use, the purchase and conversion of appropriate problemed properties to that need which is: front and center in civic concerns.  We’re talking about the the area from Highland Ave. to Vine St.  And we see many  site opportunities.

Other needs, such as replacement of obnoxious and conflicting uses with demonstrably needed uses such as a major food store, have been subsequently raised.  For example, SAVON’s has been greatly surprised by the demand for their food stock.  An ALBERTSON’S replacing the liquor complex and the pathetic Yucca Plaza would at once both serve greater neighborhood needs and replace the decay so afflicting us.  IRENE BATES, manager of SAVON, spoke to us recently of the great number of requests by residents for night time parking, and her sadness at being unable to accommodate them.

Historically, SAFEWAY stores once proposed such a plan, but was unable to accumulate sufficient property, just.one idiot property owner abstained.  Now, enough land is available via the conversion of these properties.  We only need to exert pressure.

The CRA is the fundamental enabling agency, they only lack the mandate of Council pressure. Example:  only Council pressure enabled the DOME  and the MARKETPLACE projects the massive public investment in hi rise parking.  A multitude of comparisons exist. i.e.:

• Only CRA funding purchased the auto repair site on Selma & Schrader Aves enabling the construction of subsidized housing.
• Similarly with the Hollywood Highland Ave Project.

Already, much of the public parking capacity on Cherokee is leased to residential needs.  This commercial and vicinity badly needs additional public parking at the site proposed for a youth rec. center.  Without more parking, Hollywood Blvd.  too, will remain stagnant and no food and fashion businesses will locate here as they did in Pasadena. Glendale & Culver City.

Late great news:

We now have our very own City Attorney for our LAPD Hollywood division.  A new Senior Lead Officer is being selected for 6A37 (us) as this is written (3-28-02).  We met William H. Kysella, Jr. Asst. city Attorney @ the March monthly community meeting meeting of the LAPD Hollywood Division.  He is already familiar with our problems, and will be of terrific assistance.

This is a new and innovative program by our new City Attorney, Rocky Gelgadillo, to resolve nuisance problems at the root.  This program, enthusiastically endorsed by many of us, was approved just recently by the City Council, & already we have a man in place.  He has yet to have a desk and phone, but his email address is: www.wkysell@Att, lacity.org. 

Re:  Abandoned curbside furniture:  If you will either fax me or leave me a message as to where they are: i.e., the street address; and the nature of the object, I will message such to  the Dept. of Public Works. Phone me @ 323-465-3505 or fax 323-465-3525 with the details. For example: 

What: Couch, chair, mattress, refrig. or whatever?

Where: Location, i.e.,  curbside in front of 1811 Wilcox, and

Indicate weekday pickup on that street:  __________

Leave your ph. number in case I need to call you for clarification.

 John Ehretz 
Chair, Steering Committee
ph  323  465-3505
fax  323  465-3525
email  ehretz@pacbell.net
postal  1811 Wilcox Avenue
            Hollywood, CA 90028