A statewide election to recall Governor Newsom is scheduled for September 14, 2021.
The Sierra Club strongly opposes this recall, and the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force urges you to vote NO on question 1 of your ballot.
You should all be aware that if the recall effort is successful, it could have a devastating impact on the environment here in California and in the Santa Monica Mountains in particular. The Governor has control over appointments and regulations, and a successful recall could significantly impair California’s efforts to address the climate crisis and protect the communities that are feeling its worst of impacts. Not only that, but the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) may well be in jeopardy if the recall is successful. Even the selection of a United Senator would be in the hands of a Governor who is not at all sympathetic to the environmental issues facing California today.
Don’t take the chance of these results befalling our local communities.
This recall election is purely political, with candidates vying for the governorship in what is essentially a power grab. Recalls should be reserved for instances where a public official demonstrates an incapacity to serve or, as with an impeachment subject, commits bribery, treason or other high crimes or misdemeanors.
Ballots have been mailed to every registered voter in the state, so please vote as soon as possible to have your ballot counted by September 14.
Again, the Sierra Club urges you to vote NO on the recall.
In January, the Sierra Club West Los Angeles Group hosted a special presentation from the National Wildlife Federation’s regional executive director, Beth Pratt, titled Mountain Lions As Neighbors: Building the Wildlife Crossing at Liberty Canyon.
Following a brief introduction from the David Haake (West L.A. Group Chair), Beth takes the virtual stage to talk about the Liberty Canyon crossing and the general effort to save the big cats in our midst.
This educational webinar, free to Sierra Club members and non-members alike, is part of a bi-monthly series of guest speaker events sponsored by the West Los Angeles Group, which has shifted to an online format during the past year of social distancing. Keep an eye on their Meetup page for more events coming up in the series.
The National Wildlife Federation’s campaign for a wildlife corridor over the 101 freeway has, with the $1.4 million boost from a private donor, hit the $18 million mark. While still short of the full estimated price tag, this hefty bag of change puts it that much closer to being realized.
On December 2nd, after many delays, the amendment to add the toyon and Mexican elderberry to the City of Los Angeles’s Protected Tree Ordinance was heard before the City Council’s Public Works and Gang Reduction (PWGR) Committee. The amendment was unanimously passed, with the Committee choosing to support a superior measurement standard that had long been sought by tree advocates.
These two native species, which grow as shrubs or small trees, were used for many and varied purposes by indigenous peoples — the toyon’s pomes used as food or made into a jelly, and the leaves, flowers, and bark used to make different medicinal teas. The two species are also highly important for wildlife as a source of food, and as an integral part of the ecology of our hillsides. As the Center for Biological Diversity wrote in their letter to the Committee:
“Toyon berries provide a source of food for native birds including American robins, western bluebirds, mockingbirds, and California quail. Toyon also is a prominent component of the coastal sage scrub plant community and is evolved to thrive in Southern California’s drought-prone landscapes. Likewise, Mexican elderberry is a key source of food for Southern California’s birds, and acts as a host for many species of butterflies and moths. Both shrubs provide much-needed shade for mammals, birds, and reptiles during hot summer days, and can provide nesting sites for some species.”
The Santa Monica Mountains Task Force was among the many environmental and stakeholder organizations to submit a letter of support for the addition of these species to the Protected Tree Ordinance. The process to add the two species was begun seven years ago by some members of the City’s Community Forest Advisory Committee (CFAC). Much of the delay in its progress was due to repeated efforts by the Urban Forestry Division to reduce the number of trees that would qualify for protection by insisting a different measurement standard be applied to the two new species.
The recently appointed City Forest Officer, Rachel Malarich, in an October staff report, joined UFD and the City Planning Department in supporting the changed measurement standard that would have seen few of these ecologically vital small trees protected. The SMMTF joined other organizations in supporting the call of CFAC to apply the same measurement to the new species that applies to the four species already protected in the Ordinance — that the diameter of the trunks or stems be a minimum of four inches, measured cumulatively, at four and a half feet high.
The SMMTF letter was referenced in the hearing by the Committee Chair, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, long a champion of our protected native trees. He read aloud the following paragraph as being aligned with his thinking as the City moves forward with a separate comprehensive overhaul of the Protected Tree Ordinance:
“Developers should be advised at the outset of their projects that the City expects — and potentially in the future even rewards — project design that accommodates the retention of the naturally occurring native habitat on their sites so that removals of protected native trees and shrubs are largely avoided up front. They should also be informed early that any absolutely necessary removals will need to be mitigated through the planting of the same species on site at the current Board-mandated 4:1 ratio. This “education” of developers at the front end could serve to make removals and replacements less common generally, and help reduce and avoid an expressed “need” for off-site and out-of-kind replacement plantings.”
The Task Force also supported the Community Forest Advisory Committee’s additional (and, unfortunately, unsuccessful) recommendations in their letter of November 16th to the PWGR Committee, which called for the administration of the Protected Tree Ordinance to be removed from the Urban Forestry Division and housed in an environmentally oriented department such as LASan’s Biodiversity unit, and for the team administering it to include a biologist or ecologist and an architect, rather than only the UFD staff arborists recommended by the Bureau of Street Services, in order to provide an appropriate knowledge base for this work.
After passing through the PWGR Committee, the amendment subsequently went before the full City Council for its final vote on Tuesday, December 15th, where it was again unanimously passed.
This report was written for the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force by Sara R. Nichols, a Sullivan Canyon resident and environmental activist involved in the lawsuit against real estate developers who violated state laws in pursuit of erecting mansions on top of the old-growth forest and natural wildlife habitat of a Santa Monica Mountains hillside.
An update on the status of the properties at 1834 and 1838 Old Ranch Road was inevitable. Sadly, the update is not in our favor. As you may have heard, Sullivan Equity Partners (SEP) wants to build an approximately 15,000 square-foot house with horse barn, swimming pool and guest house on each of these lots. They intend to build a 1,000-foot-long retaining wall on the east side of the lots just under Bayliss Road, Eric Drive, Westridge Terrace and Westridge Road. The lots are two thirds of the way up Old Ranch Road in a steep, wooded canyon. The proposed construction would destroy the natural state of these lots, which can be seen from many homes in the area and enjoyed from paths and trails nearby. Our ultimate aim — endorsed by the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force — is to preserve them as a small park to benefit the public. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has expressed interest in assuming ownership should we ever have the good fortune to get the far!
In 2014 SEP removed 56 trees from the property, including three trees (one, a huge legacy sycamore on City property) they had no permit to remove under the Los Angeles Protected Tree Ordinance. As a result, the City, after hearings in 2016 in front of the Bureau of Street Services and the Board of Public Works, asked the Department of Building and Safety to revoke SEP’s building and grading permits for five years, a penalty provided by the Protected Tree Ordinance. SEP sued the City in both state and federal court for damages and to try to force the City to reinstate their permits.
SEP won the state-court case and in late January 2020 a judgment was entered ordering the City to rescind its permit revocations and its decisions that SEP violated the Protected Tree Ordinance. After settlement talks between the City and SEP that were held behind closed doors, the City decided to appeal the Superior Court’s decision favoring SEP. The outcome of that appeal has not been determined. We are hoping that the Bureau of Street Services and the Board of Public Works will decide in the upcoming months to hold new hearings on SEP’s violations.
We are grateful to all of you who spoke up for the environment by taking our poll and contacting City officials to let them know of your opposition to this wildly inappropriate and dangerous development and asking them to hold new hearings.
We are concerned that the Protected Tree Ordinance could become a legal fiction if it can’t be enforced. The court’s overturning of the City’s enforcement makes a mockery of the City’s duty to protect the environment all over the City, never mind just in places like Sullivan Canyon. That said, as Sullivan Canyon is in a high-risk fire zone, this development deserves special scrutiny. Eighteen-feet-wide Old Ranch Road has been on evacuation orders twice in the last two years.
Climate change is making the risk of catastrophic fires all the more likely with each passing year. Imagine a fire truck trying to access a fire in the canyon with even one cement mixer or hauling vehicle on the road, never mind the hundreds this development would necessitate. Moreover, nationwide, there are almost 4,000 construction site fires every year. Who can guarantee that this site will be fire-free? Those homes on the top of the ridge, up-wind from the construction site, would be the most vulnerable.
In the meantime, there are ways to fight to protect 1834 and 1838 Old Ranch Road from this improper, dangerous and hideously disruptive development. We are asking for donations to pay our attorneys to represent us against this potentially terrible environmental assault.
We have managed to hold the line against this development since September 2014 and we still have a good chance to stop any inappropriate development if we muster our resources and voices at this critical point.
Please give as generously as you can to our law-firm partner in this saga, Advocates for the Environment. (see link for P.O. Box address and option to donate online). Good attorneys are not cheap! It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so your donations will be tax-deductible. I still hold out hope that we will be able to raise enough money to be able to purchase the land and turn it over to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to forever protect the land from development and our community from the nightmare that an inappropriate development of this magnitude guarantees.
Something remarkable is unfolding in the mountains above our urban sprawl — something for the ages. Parcel by parcel, acre by acre, we have amassed the largest swath of protected open space of any major metropolis in the nation. Its a text-book example of collaboration between federal, state and local officials who worked hand-in-hand with grass roots groups dedicated to protecting the area from the kind of development that overtook the Hollywood Hills. For Zev Yaroslavsky, the preservation of the Santa Monica Mountains is both political and personal.
Click here to watch this enlightening video (run time 6:32), published online ten years ago by former LA County Third District Supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky.
Ron Webster and Ruth Gerson, October 2019 | Photo by Rachel Glegg
The Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council recognized Ron Webster with a Lifetime Achievement Award at their 2019 Annual Dinner Meeting, held in Agoura Hills on Thursday, October 24th.
Ron himself, however, was unable to attend the dinner. Therefore, SMMTC President Ruth Gerson (pictured right) along with SMMTC trail crew leader Jerry Mitcham joined Ron on Sunday, November 10th for a celebratory breakfast at his favorite local spot, La Dijonaise Café in Culver City. They presented him with a certificate (you can read the text below) and an engraved clock.
The Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019.
Conservationist, Leader, Visionary – Ron Webster has devoted his life to the establishment, protection and maintenance of the trail system in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Ron’s interest in trails began over forty (40) years ago in the early 1970’s. Ron and his wife, Mary Ann, worked tirelessly with others to help establish State Parks and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA). Then, Ron directed his full attention to developing the trail system. Under his leadership and inspiration, the Sierra Club trail crew, the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council trail crew, and many other organizations have contributed hundreds of thousands of volunteer service hours to the trail system in the Santa Monica Mountains and nearby jurisdictions.
Ron has an incredible list of trail building accomplishments. Most importantly, he defined the alignment, and then designed and supervised the construction of over 30 miles of the 67-mile Backbone Trail, which was designated a National Recreation Trail upon its completion. Ron collaborated with National Parks, State Parks and other land use agencies throughout his trail building years; and, consequently, he is a vast storehouse of knowledge, skills and techniques related to trails. Long ago, Ron became the “go to guy” on virtually any question regarding trails in the Santa Monica Mountains; and, fortunately, he has transferred much of this information to other trail building crews. The Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council trail crew often joins Ron and his Sierra Club trail crew on work projects. In addition, the Trails Council trail crew frequently seeks Ron’s advice on trail projects.
Ron has a unique ability to define just the right alignment for a trail. He always finds the route that gives the trail user the maximum exposure to natural resources while also protecting those resources. Ron’s mantra is that a trail should “lay lightly on the land.” He avoids using heavy machinery to build a trail, favoring hand tools and manual labor in all trail construction.
Ron Webster’s commitment to his vision of a trail system in the Santa Monica Mountains is extraordinary. Not only has he worked continuously to accomplish this goal, he has inspired and led thousands of others to assist in expanding this vision. In the past 40 years that Ron has advocated for trails as well as designing and building them, he is probably the most important individual contributing to the development of the hundreds of miles of trails in the largest urban park in the nation. He is a true Trail Champion.
Ruth Gerson, President Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council October 2019
