In order to help aid in the recovery of stolen bicycles and also possibly help catch the thieves, Urban Escape and ELVINO on Abbot Kinney have generously offered to keep a Dremel engraving tool at their stores for the summer so that residents can etch their drivers license or phone number into the bottom of their bicycle frame. Remember to write down the serial number of the bicycle too!

Here is an informative video on how to engrave with a Dremel tool, with a smart tip on using masking tape:

We highly recommend stopping in to ElVino and Urban Escape and hooking your bike up, and will run this post again next weekend and a few more times during the summer. While use of the Dremel is free, feel free to support these awesome businesses while you are at it!

Urban Escape: 1505 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, Ca 90291 • 310 399 7313
ELVINO: 1142 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291 • 310-396-9705

From Reuters:

The 4,900 square feet main house, completed in 1987 by architect Brian Murphy, can be bought — along with the 1,355 square-foot cottage, the pool and the pool house — for $3.95 million. The three townhouses, built in 1981, range in size from 1,143 to 1,330 square feet (106-123 square meters), and can be bought for $750,000 to $1.05 million each.

For more pictures at Brian Murphy’s site click here.

Click here to make the picture full sized.

La Fiesta Brava
423 Rose Avenue
Venice, CA 90291-2629
(310) 399-8005

Join the existing thread on this by clicking here.

Here is an informative video on how to engrave with a Dremel tool, with a smart tip on using masking tape:

We highly recommend stopping in to ElVino and Urban Escape and hooking your bike up, and will run this post again next weekend and a few more times during the summer. While use of the Dremel is free, feel free to support these awesome businesses while you are at it!

Urban Escape: 1505 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, Ca 90291 • 310 399 7313
ELVINO: 1142 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291 • 310-396-9705

FOR:
Do you want Mayor Villaraigosa to approve the Oversize Vehicle Ordinance which recently passed the City Council vote? If approved it will limit RV parking on the streets of Venice.

Write this:
Subject: Please Approve the Oversize Vehicle Ordinance!
Message:
Please sign the new Oversize Vehicle Ordinance and get the signs up in Venice. Venice is the 2nd largest tourist destination in Los Angeles. It is unreasonable for Venice to remain a free urban RV campground. We need your help as residents! Please sign the Oversize Vehicle Ordinance!

Send it to these email addresses: Jennifer.Badger@lacity.org, Larry.Frank@lacity.org, councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org

__________________________________________________________

AGAINST:
Do you want Mayor Villaraigosa to reject the Oversize Vehicle Ordinance which recently passed the City Council vote? If rejected, RV’s will remain without new restrictions on the streets of Venice.

Write this:
Subject: Please Reject the Oversize Vehicle Ordinance!
Message:
Please reject the new Oversize Vehicle Ordinance. RV’s should not be restricted on where and for what hours they can park on city streets!

Send it to these email addresses: Jennifer.Badger@lacity.org, Larry.Frank@lacity.org, councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org

From BumJokes.tv :

I feel people and where they are coming from. I am a Middle Eastern man in America. CALIFORNIA is where it’s @ though. I feel for people that don’t and can’t have much. So in a sense I am one of those people. I used to just give away a couple bucks to a bum just for the fact of my hearts deepest give.

I am a firm believer of paying it forward, a helping hand is a healthy heart. So I figure instead of just giving these bums a couple of dollars for free, I figure they could make my day shine a little better for me and enjoy hearing a couple of jokes. If you have any comments GOOD, bad, negative, POSOTIVE, nasty, or poopy, please let them be stated, and that’s because “We don’t hate”. 1994 / SNOOP DOG

I Thank you for watching BumJokes.TV
God Bless.
-SaMsNeE

Friday, June 18th, starting at 7pm at the Arbor Showroom on Washington there will be a fundraiser featuring music by Meet Me At the Pub, Horny Toad, Punk for Life and Tha Conclusion. A $10 donation (or more if you can!) gets you in and beer from Pyramid brewing all night. Enter the raffle to win Arbor Snowboards, Skateboards & apparel. All proceeds raised will go to help out Jimmy.

Saturday, June 19th, from 10am- 6pm there will be a benefit “ramp jam” skate competition at the Venice United Methodist Church skate ramp. Sponsors include Venice Originals, Hecho en Venice, The VSA and Ghostriderz Skateboards. The event will have amateur and pro divisions, so the skating should be impressive.

Click “more” to see the event fliers after the jump.

We won’t be posting stories there or responding to messages or .. well … we won’t be doing anything except providing our account as a “network link” which can hopefully result in some business between the residents of Venice.

Search “Yo Venice” on Linked In and add us to your network if you would like to!

Yo! Venice! would like to thank Mike and all of the other outgoing Council Members for all of their great community work! Hopefully next Tuesday evening finds all of you on the beach having a cold beverage of your choice!

Mike Newhouse with his son Holden

From Mike Newhouse:

An Outgoing Letter From The President of the Venice Neighborhood Council

It is with mixed emotions that I finish my term as President of the Venice Neighborhood Council. After three as an elected member of the VNC, and two and a half years as its President, I feel tremendously proud of what we have done and grateful for the opportunity to have served with my neighbors. But, I also feel that we have only scratched the surface of what needs to be done.

Over the past two and a half years, all twenty-one of your VNC Board members have served with distinction, and made great strides towards making Venice a better place. The Council has made it a priority to engage and involve every specific neighborhood in Venice in our work; whether it be through our Neighborhoods Committee organizing for disaster preparedness, or the Land Use and Planning Committee specifically working with neighborhoods in which a project is proposed for siting. Community Outreach has risen to a new high, with the VNC’s work being more effectively communicated to us all through our newsletter, Your Venice, increased press coverage, e-mail alerts, and community tabling at the Venice Farmer’s Market and First Fridays. We have also taken the concept of Town Hall meetings to a new level, creating interactive forums where hundreds of Venetians come together to discuss an issue, make concrete recommendations as a community, and forward that input directly to the City Council and the Mayor.

More specifically, the VNC has worked with the merchants of Abbot Kinney and the Venice Chamber of Commerce to create First Fridays. We have helped to make recycling on the Boardwalk a reality, added trash cans and recycling bins throughout our commercial districts, and created the Bin Your Butts program, which seeks to provide receptacles throughout Venice for cigarette butt disposal, keeping that waste out of our ocean.

The VNC has also taken an active role in the Neighborhood Council system and in the City. We’ve been a big part of creating the Westside Regional Alliance of Councils, which brings all 13 Westside Councils together to cooperate on issues of regional importance. And, through our participation in the Board of Neighborhood Council Commissioners (BONC), Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC) and other groups, we’ve taken the lead on many city-wide issues and contributed to the best practices of the Neighborhood Council System.

When it comes to funding good works in our community, the VNC has re-invented the model of neighborhood council funding. We reserve almost 50% of our annual budget for projects proposed by stakeholders and community groups that directly benefit Venice. Our innovative method of basing most of this funding on a competitive application process has been widely praised and is being emulated all over the city. As for our serious issues regarding homelessness, the VNC has spent the better part of the last two years working with Councilman Rosendahl’s office to develop a system for overnight parking permits – for neighborhoods that want them – coupled with a Safe RV Parking program to provide refuge and opportunity for members of our community living in their vehicles.

In short, I believe that the VNC has become much more reflective of who we are and what we think as a community. The fact that 43 people ran for office, and almost 1300 voted, in April’s VNC election (more by far than we have ever had – and more than all but 1 of the other 89 Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles) suggests that if nothing else, more Venetians than ever know about the VNC and feel it has an effect on their lives.

However, this is just a start, and so much more needs to be done. While statistically small, over the last year Venice has experienced a disturbing rise in property and violent crimes which must be addressed. Our parking and vehicular congestion problems are growing, and in the midst of a city-wide budget crisis not only is it likely that the VNC’s budget for coming years will be heavily cut, but the city’s ability to provide basic services to our community is also in jeopardy.

Because of all the work that still must be done, I challenge every one of you to get more involved in Venice. Whether that means working directly with the VNC and its committees, starting a neighborhood watch on your street, or simply attending a meeting (which will continue to be held on the 3rd Tuesday of every month at 7pm at Westminster Elementary School) doesn’t particularly matter. What matters is your participation in making our Community a better place. Remember, It’s Your Venice, Get Involved!

Mike Newhouse

Residents are encouraged to attend and celebrate the members that are moving on from the Council after working tirelessly for our community as well as welcoming the new Council Board.

Here is an informative video on how to engrave with a Dremel tool, with a smart tip on using masking tape:

We highly recommend stopping in to ElVino and Urban Escape and hooking your bike up, and will run this post again next weekend and a few more times during the summer. While use of the Dremel is free, feel free to support these awesome businesses while you are at it!

Urban Escape: 1505 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, Ca 90291 • 310 399 7313
ELVINO: 1142 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291 • 310-396-9705

From Councilman Bill Rosendahl:

I am very disappointed that the California Coastal Commission rejected a settlement proposal that would have given residents of Venice the same ability to regulate street parking as every other community on the California coast. The proposal would have simultaneously given residents local control and increased visitor access to the beach.

Despite this setback, I am determined to use every tool at my disposal to help Venice residents regulate parking in front of their homes.

On Wednesday, the council’s Transportation Committee, which I chair, approved a stronger, tougher ordinance restricting parking by over-sized vehicles. I will ask the full City Council to adopt this ordinance. Over-sized vehicle restrictions can be adopted on a block-by-block basis, and can be implemented without seeking the approval of the Coastal Commission.

My staff and I are also moving forward aggressively with a Safe Parking program that will help move RVs and over-sized vehicles from residential streets while providing those living in their vehicles with much-needed social services and a path to housing.

While this is clearly a contentious issue, we all must resist anger and divisiveness. Solving this problem, and striking the right balance with a carrot and stick approach, will be difficult and will require patience and good will. Working together, I am confident we can accomplish that.

14A: 4 to 5, motion fails. / 3 to 6, coastal permit denied.

Cal-Span now has the entire video of today’s meeting in their archives here. For that reason we are going to stop uploading them here.

Coastal Commission Vote Part 1: