The Power Pole Guy of Point Fermin – LAUSD spent $2.3 Million dollars for upgrades to our local elementary school. The school added HVAC, technology upgrades, and also built a shelter with picnic benches. One oversight by the LAUSD is that the lunch shelter was built on land that technically belongs to the City of Los Angeles. The City owns the land and had given permission to LAUSD to use the property since 1931. So long ago that no one at the School or LAUSD even realized that it technically wasn’t theirs.
So one rather impertinent neighbor is using this technicality to force the school district to remove the picnic shelter along with some power poles which he claims is a safety issue. But all of this seems to be a charade as his real issue is that he claims that the poles block his view. The City of Los Angeles meanwhile will not release permanent power to the school for the upgrades until this issue is resolved.
Well, while our kids sit in classrooms with no HVAC, this guy seeks to make an issue out of a technicality that will be resolved and retroactively permitted by the City of Los Angeles. Good job Power Pole Guy of Point Fermin, you are the Yarn’s Grump of the Week.
Thanks for the ‘hero’ status, but I’m not really one.
James Campeau, myself, N.O.I.S.E., or everyone else we know DO NOT want the shelter removed.
The issues of why it was built where it was built is still a bit foggy because nobody can find the actual permit issued in 1931.
LAUSD has repeatedly acknowledged that buidling the shelter where they built it was a “mistake” but nobody James and I know want the shelter removed.
This issue comes down to LAUSD’s demand that the new path for the electricity to run some new equipment on the campus, be energized when LAUSD is not willing to make corrections to some of its mistakes.
LAUSD is demanding a new revocable permit when they seem unwilling to ‘fix’ one or more problems they themselves created.
The shelter should not be removed. It will have a metal roof directly under the medium voltage power lines, if they are energized.
Many of us think that if LAUSD simply undergrounds the path of the wires to the new electrical cabinet, all will be well.
What is wrong about having LAUSD pay to fix an issue it created in the first place?
LAUSD is holding up the acquisition of the permit by continuing to be unwilling to reasonably address the mistakes they made and provide a perfectly good solution that will benefit everyone.
The kids continue to suffer and their parents should not have needed to have to fight for what LAUSD could have had done, some time ago.
The shelter must stay, we all agree on that. But it is time for the bureaucracy at LAUSD to ’sack up’ to its responsibility and provide undergrounding of the cables so the problem will vanish.
I like your “Heroes” arean, but I am a little grumpy about your ‘grumpy’ area.
On my Ponte Vista blog, I ran a ‘more like John Olguin’ set of comments where I provided information about members of our community who act more like John Olguin in their community spirit and support.
The area where the blog had trouble was dealing with a fictional character who created problems, but is no longer creating posts.
By: M Richards on October 7, 2008
at 9:29 am