Other Letters

Catching Up on the Mail: Wrestling Great Remembered, Transit Mall Column Misses Mark, Unwelcomed Transients of the Housed Kind

April 17, 2001

Dear Editor:

The recent death of lifelong Santa Monican Ray Gedeon, who performed worldwide for nearly 50 years as the prominent wrestler and referee Johnny (Red Shoes) Dugan, continues to reverberate through the mat world.

The Cauliflower Alley Club, the fraternal organization of professional wrestlers and martial artists, of which Gedeon was a life member, has posted a special tribute to him on its "Finishes" web site (http://www.caulifloweralleyclub.org/finishes1.htm) and other wrestling publications are planning tribute articles. His death brought reaction from as far away as Japan, where he was often employed as an arbiter in major bouts.

Mr. Gedeon, whose professional wrestling career dated from the early 1930s, retired as a lieutenant from the Santa Monica Police Department in 1970, but continued to appear regularly in the big Olympic Auditorium wrestling shows as
a referee.

His death was hastened by a recent fall which, added to the complications of
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases, proved too much for his 89-year-old
constitution. He is was survived by his wife of 63 years, Martha, and a nephew, Stanton Manolakas.

Mr. Gedeon's colorful and energetic ring style played no little role in the remarkable success of wrestling in Los Angeles during those decades when he was active.

He will be missed.

J Michael Kenyon, Esq.
Director, Cauliflower Alley Club
Seattle WA

April 5, 2001

Dear Editor,

Frank Gruber is often an astute observer; however, his column ("It's the Process -- Don't be Stupid," March 30) on the Transit Mall litigation greatly missed the mark, perhaps because he was a part of the group which formulated the project. I couldn't disagree more with virtually all of this statements.

First, can you imagine the City permitting a private developer to confine traffic along Santa Monica Boulevard between Ocean and Fifth Street to one lane in each direction and remove 77 parking spaces from Santa Monica and Broadway without even preparing an environmental impact report? Of course not, yet that is exactly what the City is doing, or not doing, with respect to the Transit Mall.

Frank says there were "numerous traffic studies" discussed at public meetings; however, the record clearly indicates otherwise. The only traffic studies available to the public for review were those done in 1995 in connection with the Bayside Specific Plan and not one of these even considered modifications to Santa Monica Boulevard, much less removal of two lanes of traffic. The fact is that the public has never seen a traffic or parking study which deals with the Transit Mall.

Similarly, the City never conducted a study of the construction impacts of the project. Frank dismisses this omission by cavalierly concluding that we don't need an EIR because, after all, such studies "always boil down to noise and dust." However, several recent EIRs performed by the City, including those for Target, RAND, the Big Blue Bus Facility and the Public Safety Facility, went far beyond these factors to look at interruptions in traffic patterns and the loss of otherwise available parking.

The Transit Mall construction threatens major disruptions in the lives of residents and merchants from a variety of other factors, such as commencing work at 6:00 a.m. (rather than 7:30, as is normally required), working all night in alleys in some cases, and removal of loading, valet and taxi zones. Not one of these potential impacts was studied by the City under CEQA and no studies were publicly available. Instead, all the residents, merchants and property owners received were City staff requests to "trust us" and public relations propaganda.

Frank takes us to task for creating an emergency. In reality, the emergency was created by the City's willingness to commence construction without adequately studying the project's impacts and providing the public with an opportunity to comment through the EIR process. The notion that any problems will be addressed in response to a simple phone call is pure fantasy. The Bayside District Board of Directors withdrew its conditional support for the Transit Mall because of the lack of an adequate mitigation program and the City's refusal to permit public participation in addressing problems.

Frank hopes that the Transit Mall will be beneficial. So do I and I also hope that the concerns of the residents, merchants and property owners who will have to live with this project's construction for at least a year will never be realized.

Tom Larmore

April 12, 2001

Dear Editor,

It's funny that the SMRR leadership i.e. City council, made mention last Tuesday night about the transient population here in Santa Monica. I thought the SMRR leadership enjoyed the transient population. They provide enough feeding programs in our community parks to attract them here. Oh I'm sorry, they were talking about the housed transient population. What...housed transients are not welcome in this community, but non-housed are?

Now on to the real story about the fiscal %@&#--ups. Wasting our money again, or is it really? I say yes. But the bleeding liberals that want all of us out of our cars say no. They just got through approving an ungodly amount of money to study a crosswalk. But to hear them say that they had to do this study because of legal reasons, well, I say poppycock.

When the residents of this area have been screaming for three years for a simple crosswalk and pedestrian activated light, explain to me what the legal ramifications could be once they install a crosswalk and a light? Have we looked at the DMV handbook lately? Do we remember something in there saying that pedestrians have the right of way? How can we get sued and even lose the suit if a person runs a red light and strikes a person in the intersection?

More rhetoric. The truth is, they've been looking for a good reason to traffic calm 26th Street. Richard Bloom took issue with that and said there is a separation between crosswalks and traffic calming. Kevin McKeown said if the study comes back recommending curb extensions, he was going to vote for that. If this wasn't a form of traffic calming, why is this project being placed in Phase 2 of the crosswalk enhancement project a.k.a. cover name for traffic calming.

Look at the plans of Phase 2 crosswalk enhancement. It has all these center islands and curb extensions in it for Wilshire, Santa Monica, Broadway, Colorado, and Ocean Park Blvd. If you just take a minute to learn what these people are truly doing to our city, you will come to believe as I do that they're so full of it. And the worst part is, they think they're fooling us. Wake up Santa Monica, before it's too late, and we all lose our rights to move freely as we once did without all the congestion in this city.

Chuck Allord
Santa Monica

April 10, 2001

Dear Editor,

Re: Letter printed on April 9)

Is Tom Larmore upset about artists on welfare or is he really making a
statement that supports the living wage?

Linda Sullivan
Santa Monica